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COPYRIGHT DEPOSnV 



THE FUTURE LEADERSHIP 
OF THE CHURCH 



BOOKS BY JOHN R. 


MOTT 


STRATEGIC POINTS IN THE 


WORLD'S 


CONQUEST. 




THE EVANGELIZATION OF THE WORLD 


IN THIS GENERATION. 




THE STUDENTS OF NORTH 


AMERICA 


UNITED. 




THE PASTOR AND MODERN 


MISSIONS. 



THE 

FUTURE LEADERSHIP 

OF THE CHURCH 



By JOHN R. MOTT, M.A. 

M 
GENERAL SECRETARY OF THE WORLD'S 
STUDENT CHRISTIAN FEDERATION 



NEW YORK 

STUDENT VOLUNTEER MOVEMENT 

FOR FOREIGN MISSIONS 

1908 






LIBRARY of CONGRESS 
Two Copies Received 

NOV 3 i908 

^^ Copy rlffht Entry ^ A 



Copyright, 1908, by 
STUDENT VOLUNTEER MOVEMENT 



PREFACE 

This book is addressed to the leaders of the 
Church, both ministers and laymen, and to all 
others who are deeply interested in the prog- 
ress of Christianity. It is largely the result 
of investigations carried on during the past 
six years in all parts of the world. These 
studies were undertaken at the suggestion of 
several ministers who had been impressed by 
the successful efforts of the Student Volunteer 
Movement in enlisting strong men as volun- 
teers for the foreign mission fields and who 
were burdened with a sense of solicitude be- 
cause of the dearth of able candidates for the 
home ministry. 

The sources of information consulted and 
the methods employed in the investigation may 
be briefly indicated. Conferences have been 
held with companies of the foremost ministers, 
theological professors, editors of religious 



Vi PREFACE 

periodicals, and officers of denominational so- 
cieties in different parts of North America, 
Europe, Australasia, and South Africa, as well 
as on all the principal foreign mission fields. 
Correspondence has been conducted with hun- 
dreds of the ministers of the various Christian 
bodies. Discussions have been carried on at 
many conventions of theological students; 
also, in universities of different countries, with 
young men intending to become ministers. 
Even more suggestive have been the free and 
frank discussions with selected groups of 
young men planning to devote their lives to 
teaching, law, medicine, literature, engineer- 
ing, and other lay pursuits. The thousands of 
interviews held, during a period of twenty 
years' work in colleges, with young men who 
have come to talk over their life-work plans 
have been made tributary to this investigation. 
With the aid of special helpers there have been 
examined the proceedings of the ecclesias- 
tical gatherings, the year-books and the peri- 
odicals of all the leading denominations of 
the United States and Canada, as well as the 
reports of societies dealing with questions 
bearing on candidates for the ministry, cov- 



PREFACE vu 

ering a period of one, and in some cases, two 
or three generations. Similar but less ex- 
tensive investigations have been made in 
some foreign countries. Time has been spent 
in libraries which possess the most complete 
book and pamphlet literature on the subject 
of the discovering, enlisting, and training of 
candidates for the ministry. 

Comparatively little of the material accumu- 
lated is used in the book. Some may question 
why more of the statistical data has not been 
employed; but the further I proceeded in the 
examination of statistics, the stronger became 
the impression that in many cases generaliza- 
tions drawn from such material would be mis- 
leading or, at any rate, confusing, and would 
raise more questions than they would answer. 
This is due to marked differences in various 
sections of the same country, in the character 
of various types of colleges, in the terminology 
and practices of various denominations, and in 
the conditions which characterize different 
periods in rapidly changing countries like the 
United States and Canada. While the minute 
study of the evidence obtained in such an in- 
vestigation has been of distinct help both in 



viii PREFACE 

creating and in correcting impressions, it has 
seemed best not to present at this time many 
statistical statements, because the reader, with- 
out the opportunity of going over the detailed 
data, might easily be led to wrong conclusions. 
A further reason for this course is the desire 
to fix attention not so much on the numerical 
aspect of the question under discussion as on 
that of the character or quality of the men 
needed for the ministry at this time, for while 
the question of quantity has a practical bear- 
ing on that of quality, it is not essential to the 
present inquiry. 

The larger part of the material here used 
was first presented in lectures given during the 
past winter and spring at Toronto under the 
auspices of the five theological colleges — Knox, 
McMaster, Trinity, Victoria, and Wyclifife; 
at Berkeley, California, under the auspices of 
the theological seminaries of the Pacific Coast ; 
and at Nashville, Tennessee, under the aus- 
pices of the Theological Department of Van- 
derbilt University. These lectures have been 
completely revised and enlarged by the 
use of many new facts and additional consid- 
erations. 



PREFACE IX 

I find it difficult, in fact impossible, to ex- 
press adequately my sense of obligation and 
gratitude to the many ministers, professors, 
editors, and leading laymen who by giving 
valuable information as v^ell as discerning 
criticism and generous encouragement have 
facilitated the work of preparation. 

John R. Mott 

New York, November, 1908 



CONTENTS 

1 PAGE 

THE PROBLEM ..... 3 

II 
THE URGENCY 1/ 

III 

THE OBSTACLES 5/ 

IV 

THE FAVORING INFLUENCES . . . 105 

V 

THE PROPAGANDA 141 



THE PROBLEM 



THE PROBLEM 

To secure able men for the Christian ministry- 
is an object of transcendent, urgent, and world- 
wide concern. It involves the life, the growth, 
the extension of the Church — the future of 
Christianity itself. 

The Church is a divine institution, founded by 
Christ and the Apostles. It has done more to 
purify, enrich, and strengthen mankind than have 
all other movements. It is still the most pow- 
erful and beneficent agency for promoting the 
cause of morality and religion. It has ever been 
and yet is not only an ameliorating force that 
makes life tolerable, but an inspiring force that 
makes life progressive. Take the Christian 
Church out of society and it collapses. The 
Church furnishes the springs of life and power 
for all other beneficent institutions and move- 
ments. It is the root ; they are the branches. Its 
3 



4 FUTURE LEADERSHIP OF THE CHURCH 

work is the most enduring ; it deals with the in- 
destructible part of man.^ 

It is evident that no society of men can hold 
together and can realize great objects without 
thoroughly qualified leaders. The Church of 
Christ is no exception. Wherever the Church has 
proved inadequate it has been due to inadequate 
leadership. If the Church is to grow, so as to 
meet the growing needs of the age, it must have 
able men in its ministry. Without such leader- 
ship there is danger that it will ultimately be 
reduced to a negligible force. The failure to 
raise up a competent ministry would be a far 
greater failure than not to win converts to the 
Christian faith, because the enlarging of the 
Kingdom ever waits for leaders of power. What 
problem of the Church is there to-day which 
cannot best be solved by enlisting for this call- 
ing more men of the highest qualifications? 
What calamity, next to the withdrawal of 
Christ's presence, should be more dreaded than 
to have young men of genius and of large equip- 
ment withhold themselves from responding to the 
call of the Christian ministry? And yet this is 
the calamity which is impending. 

» J. B. Lightfoot, "The Christian Ministry," p. 2. 



THE PROBLEM 5 

The statistics of ministerial candidates afford 
ground for grave concern. In the student year 
1894-5 there were in attendance at fifty-eight 
leading graduate theological schools in the United 
States 4,004 students, whereas twelve years later 
there were but 3,304 students, or a falling off of 
eighteen per cent.^ During this period the com- 
municant membership of the twenty-six largest 
Protestant denominations increased from 13,351,- 
856 to 16,791,948, being an increase of twenty- 
five per cent. During the same period the white 
population of the country increased approxi- 
mately twenty per cent. Between twenty and 
thirty other statistical studies, made in individual 
denominations or groups of denominations, re- 
veal in every case either actual decline in the 
number of candidates or an increase not com- 
mensurate with the growth in population. In all 
my conversations and correspondence with lead- 
ers of the various American churches I have 
learned of no denomination in which there is not 
a demand for more men of ability for the min- 
istry in all sections of the country. 

* Statistics gathered by the Commission on the Divinity 
School of the University of Chicago, Professor E. D. Burton, 
Secretary. 



6 FUTURE LEADERSHIP OF THE CHURCH 

This problem is one confronting the Church in 
all parts of the world. In Canada the situation is 
not as serious as in the United States. Never- 
theless, correspondence with more than two hun- 
dred ministers in all parts of the Dominion, and 
conferences with theological professors, editors, 
and clergymen has made plain that this is already 
a very real problem in every communion, and 
one that is likely to become more and more 
acute and threatening with the rapid increase in 
population and the growing absorption of the 
Canadian people in the material development of 
the country. 

While in Great Britain in 1905, I had a series 
of conferences on this subject with companies of 
Christian leaders. The Archbishop of Canter- 
bury called together a group of men in the 
Church of England deeply interested in the mat- 
ter, and afforded an opportunity to discuss it 
with them. The President of the Council of Free 
Churches brought together for the same purpose 
a number of leaders in the Free Churches in 
London. Both at Oxford and at Cambridge 
conferences were held with Anglican professors 
and tutors, and with Free Church professors and 
ministers. Likewise, in Edinburgh and Glas- 



THE PROBLEM 7 

gow there were gatherings of theological pro- 
fessors and ministers of the different churches. 
A similar group came together at Cardiff in 
Wales. The evidence brought out in this series 
of discussions revealed the fact that, though the 
dearth of well-qualified candidates is greater in 
England than in Scotland and Wales, there was 
practical agreement among the Christian leaders 
of all three nationalities that more of the keen- 
est and most gifted young men are needed for 
the work of the ministry. 

In 1907 the Archbishop of Canterbury ap- 
pointed a committee to examine into the supply 
and training of candidates for Holy Orders in 
the Church of England. According to the report 
of this committee there has been during the 
twenty-two years since 1886 a steady decline in 
the number of candidates ordained in the Prov- 
inces of Canterbury and York, from 814 in 1886 
to 587 in 1907, aggregating a total falling off in 
twenty-two years of 3,124. The committee fur- 
ther call attention to the fact that, if the growth 
in population be taken into consideration, the 
total shortage for this period stands at 5,324. 
They also point out that the number of deacons 
ordained to every 100,000 of the population of 



8 FUTURE LEADERSHIP OF THE CHURCH 

England and Wales was, in 1881, 2.^', but in 
1901, only 1.7.^ 

On the Continent, with the exception of Hol- 
land and parts of Scandinavia where I was told 
by the leaders with whom I consulted that no 
difficulty was experienced in securing an ade- 
quate number of well-qualified men, the supply 
of satisfactory candidates for the ministry by no 
means equals the demand. In Germany there has 
been for some time a steady falling off in the 
number of theological students. In 1881 there 
were attending the Protestant theological faculty 
of the German universities nine young men to 
every one hundred thousand of the population of 
the country. Twenty-five years later, that is in 
1906, there were but five to every one hun- 
dred thousand. The following table ^ shows the 
marked decline in the number of Protestant 

theological students in the German universities: 

1890-1 1906-7 

Protestant theological students 4,190 2,208 

Catholic theological students 1,232 1,708 

Law students 6,670 12,146 

Medical students 8,381 7,098 

Philosophical students 7,886 17,219 

Total number of students 28,359 4°, 3 79 

1 " The Supply and Training of Candidates for Holy 

Orders," (June, 1908), p. 9. 

2 " Kirchliches Jahrbuch auf der Jahr 1907," von J. 

Schneider, p. 337. 



THE PROBLEM 9 

During my visits to Australia, New Zealand, 
and South Africa within the past six years, I 
made it a point to investigate this question, and 
discovered that in each one of these countries 
one of the greatest needs was that of having 
more of the ablest young men devote their lives 
to the service of the Church. Everywhere 
the fact was deplored that the colonial churches 
had been unable to recruit a ministry of their 
own, and that they were so largely dependent 
on the unsatisfactory plan of looking to the 
churches in the mother country for ministers. 
The only exception is the Dutch Reformed 
Church in South Africa, which for many years 
has had a remarkable record. In no part of the 
world, in fact, not even in Scotland, have I found 
a church which in recent years has succeeded in 
attracting to the ministry so many of the finest 
type of its young men. 

In conferences of missionaries and native 
Christian leaders conducted during the past six 
years in foreign mission fields of Asia, Africa, 
and Latin America there was universal testimony 
that the most difficult and important problem in 
the evangelization of the world is that of secur- 
ing an able native Christian ministry. 



lo FUTURE LEADERSHIP OF THE CHURCH 

Therefore, let it be reiterated that the question 
of securing a sufficient number of well-qualified 
recruits for the ranks of the Christian ministry 
is of world-wide interest and concern. 

While in almost every land and church there 
is a demand for larger numbers of ministerial 
candidates, even more imperative is the appeal 
for men of strength to consecrate themselves to 
this calling. Even in the comparatively few de- 
nominations where there are apparently enough 
ministers, it is conceded that there is need of 
more ministers of large caliber and possessing 
gifts of leadership. As the progress of the Chris- 
tian religion is of the most fundamental and vital 
interest, it must not be committed to the charge 
of incompetent hands. The work of the min- 
istry is so comprehensive that it requires strong 
men to carry it on. As the Rev. Ozora S. Davis, 
of New Britain, Connecticut, expressed the point : 
" I do not conceive my work as that of a pro- 
fessional teacher, preacher, visitor, organizer, 
comforter, priest, reformer, or even prophet. It 
is something of all of these; but is something 
more than the sum of all these." Such a work 
calls for all-round, symmetrical, thoroughly 
furnished men. 



THE PROBLEM II 

The distinctive emphasis is placed, therefore, 
on the need of men of ability rather than upon 
the need for greater numbers. What is meant 
by men of ability? Men of personal force or 
strength of personality. Men of sound physical 
constitution who have the requisite common sense 
and self-control to care for the body, thus insur- 
ing its best working efficiency. Men of mental 
power and proper habits of study, determined 
not to stagnate intellectually. They should have 
the ability to appreciate and the will to employ 
the best methods of study ; this is more important 
than the most coveted university degrees. They 
should be men possessing the ability to express 
sympathy and friendship. They should have a 
genuine religious experience. Ministers who do 
not know Christ at first hand, who do not have 
a clear and vital faith, cannot speak with that 
tone of authority which should characterize the 
pulpit. They must have a message and the con- 
sciousness of a mission. They should be able 
to give effective expression to their passion for 
Christ and for men. They should be men of 
intense moral enthusiasm. Men with hearts 
aflame with the passion of the Cross and ready 
to stake everything on their cause will succeed. 



12 FUTURE LEADERSHIP OF THE CHURCH 

The modern ministry requires men of heroic 
spirit like Knox, by whose grave it could be 
said, " Here lies one who never feared the face 
of man." ^ They should also be able to organize, 
lead, and inspire others to work. The growing 
lay forces of the churches need to be marshaled 
and guided. Above all, ministers should be great 
in character — men whose lives are modeled upon 
the life of Christ and are yielded unreservedly to 
His sway. ** The only profession which consists 
in being something," said President Woodrow 
Wilson with fine insight, " is the ministry of our 
Lord and Saviour — and it does not consist of 
anything else. It is manifested in other things, 
but it does not consist of anything else." ^ This 
point is more important now than ever be- 
fore, because the world is losing respect for 
the ministerial office, though not for the man 
who ministers. The age has produced a new 
viewpoint. The minister is respected not be- 
cause he is a minister, but because he is a man 
who answers to the test required of the repre- 
sentative of the Christ. "If our religion is to 

* James Stalker, "John Knox: His Ideas and Ideals," p. 94. 

2 From an address at a Conference of students of Eastern 

colleges, held at Hartford Theological Seminary in April, 1906. 



THE PROBLEM 13 

be great and to do great things, it must be in 
the care of great souls, — souls great in illumina- 
tion and in intense and pure desire," ^ 

^ George A. Gordon, "The Claims of the Ministry upon 
Strong Men," in "The Ministry as a Profession" (addresses 
delivered before the Divinity Club of the Harvard Divinity 
School), p. 6. 



THE URGENCY 



II 

THE URGENCY 

" I WANT to live/' said Phillips Brooks, shortly 
before his death, and gave as his reason that 
the next twenty years would offer greater op- 
portunities for the Christian minister than any 
other like period in history.^ As one contem- 
plates even the regular functions of this calling, 
one must be convinced that in vital importance 
there is no work comparable to the Christian 
ministry: to preach Christ; to lead men to be- 
come disciples of Christ as their Divine Saviour 
and Lord; to build them up in Christian faith 
and Christian character; to minister to them in 
the deepest experiences as well as in the ordi- 
nary needs of life; to enlist, train, and energize 
Christian workers; to organize and administer 
the varied activities of the Church. But to ap- 
preciate fully the scope and possibilities of the 

1 " The Congregationalist;' Vol. LXXVIII, p. 246. 
17 



l8 FUTURE LEADERSHIP OF THE CHURCH 

ministry, one must keep in mind some special 
considerations emphasizing the reasons why 
more young men of abiHty should enter this 
calling. The stronger the man the greater the 
obligation to heed the claims of this high call- 
ing in the Church, because weak men or even 
men of average ability cannot meet the require- 
ments of able leadership. For men who are 
really capable there are more great openings in 
this service of the Christian Church than in any 
other department of our modern world. If the 
Church is to meet successfully the momentous 
problems which press upon it now with great in- 
sistence, there must be an increase in the num- 
ber of competent men forthcoming for the 
Christian ministry. 

Men of talent and consecration are needed to 
guide the religious thinking of the people and 
to help meet their intellectual dififiiculties con- 
cerning religious subjects. It is a time of the- 
ological readjustment and restatement. It is a 
period of uncertainty and unrest with reference 
to religious truth. The critical spirit is assert- 
ing itself with great vigor and is calling in 
question fundamental doctrines and even ac- 
cepted rules of conduct. Many Christians who 



THE URGENCY 19 

do little or no real thinking for themselves on 
such matters need to be enlightened and con- 
firmed in regard to vital points of faith. This 
must be done with wisdom, or more questions 
may be raised than answered. Others within 
the churches, including some of the most intel- 
ligent and thoughtful, are perplexed and trou- 
bled by serious doubts and questionings. They 
need competent and sympathetic guidance in 
thinking, reading, and investigating, and above 
all in the spheres of personal experience and 
service — ^the great solvents of so many doubts. 
He that doeth shall know. 

Neither ignorant and blatant infidelity nor 
more or less ably reasoned skepticism and ag- 
nosticism can be ignored by the ministry, but 
must be understood and met with scholarly 
thoroughness and fairness and always in the 
Christian spirit.^ Such an alliance as one finds 
on the continent of Europe between the social- 
ist propaganda and current unbelief must be 
averted in North America, or the consequences 
will be most serious to the nation as well as to 
the Church. The widespread rehgious indiffer- 

1 D. S. Cairns, in "Preparation for the Christian Ministry 
in View of Present-day Conditions," pp. 9, 10. 



20 FUTURE LEADERSHIP OF THE CHURCH 

ence which is more largely due to uncertainty 
about Christian truth among Christians them- 
selves than is generally reaHzed, must be dealt 
with at the sources. Large service can be ren- 
dered by all who help to restate the old facts 
and unchanged truths in terms that will make 
them vivid and vital to others; and who assist 
in the work of theological restatement which is 
a requirement of every age. It should be added 
that such restatement is needed and demanded 
at no other time so much as in an age dom- 
inated by the scientific spirit. 

It requires men of constructive ability to 
grapple successfully with such conditions, to 
think clearly through the problems and to guide 
the Church safely past the rocks and rapids. 
" A time when people in an unprecedented de- 
gree are thinking, can be guided by those only 
who can think straight and can report their 
thought with power.'' ^ Men who ignore or 
minimize the existence and gravity of the intel- 
lectual unrest in the realm of religious thought, 
and who are not ready to do the hard, con- 
structive, and courageous work necessary to 

» Francis G. Peabody, "The Call to Theology," The Har- 
vard Theological Review^ Vol. I, p. 4. 



THE URGENCY 21 

meet the need, are not qualified to be guides and 
leaders. It is encouraging to note that never 
before have men longed more for confident spir- 
itual guidance and reHgious leadership; but only 
those can actually guide and lead who them- 
selves know what men are questioning and suf- 
fering, who understand the point of view of 
those whom they would help, and who can speak 
to them in the language of their day.^ While 
it is essential now as always that men in the 
ministry should be men of integrity of char- 
acter, of real spirituality, and of practical work- 
ing efficiency, there is imperative need that in 
addition to these qualities they shall be men of 
intellectual authority and leadership.^ In the 
United States and Canada, where we are so bent 
on being practical and are so prone to magnify 
external agencies and great activity, there is spe- 
cial need of men of very thorough intellectual 
equipment. We need more men in positions of 
leadership in the Church who can show that a 
full intellectual equipment is not inconsistent 

^ P. T. Forsyth, " Positive Preaching and the Modern Mind," 
p. 179. • 

2 J. R. Illingworth, "The Church and Human Thought in 
the Present Day," in "Pan-Anghcan Papers" (being problems 
for consideration at the Pan-Anglican Congress in 1908). 



22 FUTURE LEADERSHIP OF THE CHURCH 

with deep Christian experience and with fervor 
in promulgating positive Christian truth. 

Thoroughly furnished men are required in the 
ministry to develop the teaching and training 
side of the work of the Church.^ The teaching 
function of the ministry must be emphasized, for 
it constitutes in some respects the most endur- 
ing and satisfying work that the minister does. 
But even more should the fact be emphasized 
that each church is an institution of learning 
and a training school. If large and lasting re- 
sults are to be secured, attention must be con- 
centrated more than ever upon the religious 
instruction of the youth. Modern psychology is 
emphasizing the first importance of bringing the 
influence of the Church to bear during the age 
of adolescence. The discussions of the Religious 
Education Association have made plain that the 
Church should devote more attention to her 
duty as teacher, both of the youth and of those 
of mature years. 

The minister has the responsibility of super- 
vising the religious education of the entire par- 
ish. He may guide the home in its plans of 
moral and religious culture. He may inspire 

» J. B. Lightfoot, "The Christian Ministry," p. 22. 



THE URGENCY 23 

parents with higher ideals in child-training. He 
may make the Sunday school a real school, con- 
ducted with such modern methods and such 
thorough spirit as not to suffer in comparison 
with the best secular institutions of learning. 
This is all the more necessary because of the 
absence of religious instruction in our common 
secular schools. He may organize and stimulate 
home and foreign mission study classes, and 
clubs for the consideration of various other 
problems and opportunities of his church. He 
may conduct normal classes for the training of 
teachers and leaders of different classes, clubs, 
and activities. He may increase greatly the faith- 
building and character-building effectiveness of 
his preaching by making it conform more fully 
to the principles of modern psychology and ap- 
proved pedagogy. The pulpit that teaches has 
always commanded respect, and in this age, when 
education and the work of the teacher are more 
exalted than ever, it cannot fail to hold its place 
secure. This applies particularly to expository 
preaching which should be given greater prom- 
inence in the modern pulpit. This intensive 
work, this building work, this highly multiply- 
ing work of teaching and training, if it is to 



24 FUTURE LEADERSHIP OF THE CHURCH 

be sound, that is, if it is to be in accordance 
with the settled principles of psychology and 
pedagogy, both as carried on by the minister 
himself and as promoted by others through him, 
requires that he be a man of capacity and that 
he himself be thoroughly equipped for the task. 
Strong men are needed in the ministry to- 
day to lay secure Christian foundations for the 
new states and provinces in the great West. 
This undertaking calls loudly and imperatively 
for Christian leadership. It is one of our most 
pressing tasks. New American states and Can- 
adian provinces have been formed within half 
a generation and are still plastic. Others 
are actually being created. The opening in the 
United States of nearly, if not quite, a score of 
reservations, beginning in 1906 and still in proc- 
ess, offers millions of acres of good land for 
settlement. Improved means of agriculture are 
making available for profitable cultivation im- 
mense tracts between the Missouri and the 
Rockies, as well as in the older sections of the 
country.^ The redemption of waste places by 

^ The reports by S. A. Knapp on " Farmer's Cooperative 
Demonstration Work," as carried on by the United States 
Department of Agriculture and by the General Education 



THE URGENCY 25 

new and extensive schemes of irrigation is 
creating out of the very wilderness the equiva- 
lent of entire states. 

President Frank K. Sanders has shown in his 
document, " The Newest West," that the situa- 
tion caused by these new conditions is extremely 
urgent. He insists that in less than half a gen- 
eration the stamp will have been given to the 
character of the civilization of this important 
part of the country. The influence of Chris- 
tianity should be brought to bear upon these 
new, and especially upon these newest, terri- 
tories before they become set or crystallized. 
What ideals shall dominate them — those of ma- 
terialism, greed, pleasure-seeking worldliness, 
and irreverence, or those of righteousness, un- 
selfishness, and godly fear? The answer con- 
cerns not only these states and provinces, some 
of which at no distant date will exceed in popu- 
lation and productive power entire European 
nations, but the whole United States and Can- 
ada, of which they form organic parts. On 
grounds of patriotism it is a matter of pro- 
found concern to the citizens of these nations 

Board, suggest the vast undeveloped agricultural possibilities 
of the country. 



26 FUTURE LEADERSHIP OF THE CHURCH 

whether the religion of Jesus Christ shall actu- 
ally determine the character of their civilization, 
practices, and life. Christians should be stimu- 
lated by the zeal and activity of the Mormons 
in their efforts to extend their influence in the 
new territories and states. 

The minister as a Christian preacher and 
teacher can do more than anyone else to in- 
fluence their civiHzation and life. The work of 
Christian foundation laying is difficult and de- 
mands the wisest men. None are too good for 
this work of constructive statesmanship. May 
a sufficient number of young men be forthcom- 
ing to accompHsh the task! The efforts put 
forth during the next two decades will be vastly 
more productive than those during the subse- 
quent two generations if we neglect to improve 
the immediate opportunity. One realizes the 
great importance of this work as he recalls the 
influence exerted by the Puritan ministers, in- 
cluding scores of graduates of Oxford and Cam- 
bridge, at the formative stage of New England.^ 
The itinerant preachers of early Methodism pro- 
foundly influenced the civilization of the fron- 
tier settlements. Bishop Asbury and other 

1 John Fiske, "The Beginnings of New England," p. no. 



THE URGENCY 27 

traveling ministers of his day inculcated respect 
for law and held up high ideals of Christian 
citizenship in the new states which they visited. 
What does not Ohio owe to the fact that in its 
plastic period men like Lyman Beecher, Charles 
G. Finney, and James Hoge identified them- 
selves with its life. Think of the influence 
wielded by the band of eleven Yale men who 
in 1829 went out to plant Christian civilization 
in northern and central Illinois; and of the 
impress of the Andover Band of nine men on 
the commonwealth of Iowa in its early history. 
Recall, also, the wonderful work accomplished 
by Marcus Whitman in the Pacific Northwest, 
by Bishop Whipple in Minnesota, and by James 
Robertson, Alexander Grant, and George Mc- 
Dougall in the Canadian West. Nor should we 
overlook the service rendered the nation by 
those devoted men, chiefly ministers, who built 
up the Christian colleges of the Eastern, West- 
ern, and Southern states without which no suf- 
ficient ministry could have been provided for 
these sections. 

It will require in the ministry more young men 
possessing the qualities of true leadership, if the 
Church is to do her part in assimilating the in- 



28 FUTURE LEADERSHIP OF THE CHURCH 

creasing immigration. There are in the United 
States to-day nearly thirty millions of people 
who are either foreigners or of foreign parent- 
age. The immigration to both the United States 
and Canada is increasing, and with more ra- 
pidity during the past decade than at any time 
in the history of these two countries. More have 
come to the United States in the past seven 
years than in the first seventy years of the life 
of the Republic. Many more people were added 
to Canada during the past two years than 
were to be found in all Upper and Lower Can- 
ada at the end of the fifty years following the 
French and Indian War. Canada added last 
year nearly enough immigrants to make a new 
Toronto ; and the United States has been adding 
enough every two years to make a new Chicago. 
Although during the past year there has been 
a marked check in immigration into the United 
States, the causes of the arrest are transient, 
while those of the previous influx are constant. 
In Canada while the Anglo-Saxon element 
still largely predominates in the immigration, the 
streams from other parts of Europe have begun 
to set in, and it may be safely predicted that 
they will constantly increase. Already over fifty 



THE URGENCY 29 

nationalities and countries are represented in this 
immigration. That of the United States is vastly 
more varied and representative, being drawn as 
it is from all of the primary racial groups of 
the world. In 1882, Western Europe furnished 
eighty-seven per cent of America's immigration ; 
in 1902, only twenty-two per cent. In contrast, 
notice that in 1882, Southeastern Europe and 
Asiatic Turkey furnished only thirteen per cent 
of the immigration, but in 1902, seventy-eight 
per cent. In other words, the sources of our 
immigration, which were once chiefly Protestant, 
have become predominantly Roman Catholic, 
Greek Catholic, and Jewish.^ This new immigra- 
tion is obviously composed of classes not easily as- 
similated. In far too many cases these people come 
to us unprepared to absorb readily our national 
and religious ideas or to sympathize with our 
characteristic traditions and ideals. Different 
sections of this immigration are massing together 
in our large cities, and in some cases in rural 
districts, thus constituting, as it were, states 
within the state, having languages, customs, and 
ideals differing from those of the surrounding 

* John R. Commons, " Races and Immigrants in America," 
p. 217. 



30 FUTURE LEADERSHIP OF THE CHURCH 

population and preparing the way for future race 
misunderstandings and antagonisms. 

This great and ever-growing foreign popula- 
tion constitutes not only a problem and a peril, 
but also an inspiring opportunity and challenge. 
Scores of years of experience have demonstrated 
again and again on this continent the practicabil- 
ity of assimilating and transforming great masses 
of alien peoples into good citizens. But we have 
not realized as we should, that pure Christianity 
can do vastly more to accomplish this desired end 
than legislation or education apart from Chris- 
tianity. There is no power like that of the Lord 
Jesus Christ to break down race prejudice and 
to bind peoples into real unity.^ Moreover, 
Christianity alone can teach and preserve real 
freedom and democracy. It is imperative that 
the Church should plan for reaching these peo- 
ples on a far larger scale. The Christian forces 
must be united and must bring their combined 
influence to bear upon this problem as never be- 
fore. It is a well-known fact that these alien 
peoples are most susceptible to the influences of 

1 The unifying power of the Christian religion is empha- 
sized by W. M. Ramsay in the striking chapter, " The States- 
manship of Paul," in "Pauline and Other Studies." 



THE URGENCY 31 

Christianity when they first arrive in the country, 
while their hearts are still tender with the mem- 
ories of home, and before they have formed new 
associations.^ 

Those who have looked deeply into the matter 
know that the work of assimilating these peo- 
ples, not only politically, but also morally and 
religiously, requires the leadership of men of the 
highest order of talent and of the widest range 
of sympathy. To understand the antecedents of 
these people and their present point of view, to 
be able to appreciate and overcome their preju- 
dices, to adapt the work and message of the 
Church so as actually to win them, is difficult 
indeed. It demands large men to discover and 
utilize the strong points of these foreigners as 
well as to bring our best to bear helpfully upon 
them. In seeking to bring them into sympathy 
with our Washington and Lincoln we must also 
endeavor to know their Kosciuszko, Garibaldi, 
and Mazzini.2 

» This is well illustrated by Edward A. Steiner, " On the 
Trail of the Immigrant." 

2 Ozora S. Davis, "The New New England," in The Con- 
gregationalist, Vol. XCIII, p. 350 ff. See also John L. Sewall, 
*'The Advance of the New Neighborliness,'* Vol. XCIII, pp. 
580, 581. 



32 FUTURE LEADERSHIP OF THE CHURCH 

One of the most difficult and essential tasks 
before the Church is that of enlisting and train- 
ing for our foreign-speaking peoples workers 
from among their own numbers, and experi- 
ence on the foreign mission fields shows that 
to accomplish this requires men of leadership. 
The winning of the newcomers will not be ac- 
complished until the local churches recognize 
their responsibility, and put forth efforts to meet 
the new conditions of their immediate environ- 
ment; and the local churches will not recognize 
and discharge their responsibility unless they 
have as their pastors men of vision, consecration, 
and efficiency. We must frankly admit that the 
supply of young men of power now being added 
to the ministry is not sufficient to make pos- 
sible the transformation of these heterogeneous 
masses and their fusion into a real Christian 
unity with ourselves. In some way we must 
multiply the number of men with the caliber, 
spirit, and achieving ability of Dr. Henry A. 
Schauffler who accomplished such a valuable 
pioneer work among the great Bohemian popu- 
lation of Cleveland. 

If Christianity is to guide and inspire the cit- 
ies of North America, more of the ablest young 



THE URGENCY 33 

men must devote themselves to the leadership of 
the Church. In the year 1800 less than four per 
cent of the people of the United States lived in 
cities; by the year 1900 the proportion had in- 
creased to thirty-three per cent. One hundred 
and sixty cities now contain over one fourth of 
the entire population of the country. In Canada 
the population of the one city of Toronto has, 
during the past sixty years, increased over one 
thousand per cent. 

The disproportionate growth of the cities con- 
tinues at a startling pace. The wider application 
of the power of steam and electricity, and the 
higher evolution of machinery for farm, road, 
and factory, will, contrary to the impression of 
some, result in the further building up of the 
cities at the expense of the country districts. 
While in the rural districts the changed condi- 
tions, due to better roads, rapid transit, tele- 
phones, free mail delivery, improved agricultural 
methods, and other causes may result in detain- 
ing larger numbers in the country, yet the causes 
of the increase of urban population are perma- 
nent, so that probably within less than a genera- 
tion, so far as the United States is concerned, 
the cities will gain the power of the majority. 



34 FUTURE LEADERSHIP OF THE CHURCH 

America's largest city already has 49.9 per cent 
of the population of the Empire State, If the 
rate of increase, which characterized the decade 
from 1890 to 1900 continues, by 1940 we shall 
have over 20,000,000 more people in the cities 
than outside of the cities. This is startling and 
may well arrest the attention of thoughtful lead- 
ers of the Christian Church. It acquires special 
significance when we remember that the cities 
are not only centers of population, wealth, in- 
telligence, and influence, but also of discontent, 
struggle, lawlessness, sin, and moral havoc. 
Think of the prominence of the saloon, brothel, 
and gambling den, of the dirt and overcrowding, 
of the masses sunken under the weight of desti- 
tution and misery, of the prevalence of injustice, 
rapacity, and civic corruption. 

To add to the seriousness of the situation, it 
should be pointed out that in the United States 
the great cities are only from one half to one 
fourth as well supplied with churches as is the 
country as a whole. What is more alarming still, 
when their entire population is taken into consid- 
eration, as it should be, the Church is growing 
relatively weaker in the ever-enlarging cities. 
Too many churches to-day follow their support- 



THE URGENCY 35 

ing constituencies to the most favored sections 
of the cities or to the suburbs rather than hold 
their ground and continue to serve a people even 
more in need of their ministrations. As a result, 
the cities are underchurched in some areas and 
overchurched in others. With growing coopera- 
tion each church will have its distinctive field. 

The cities are strategic positions. No cause 
can carry the nation until it has carried these 
centers of population. This was strikingly 
illustrated in the early days of Christianity.^ 
Therefore, if Christianity is actually to become 
the motive power of the United States and 
Canada, it must be strong in the cities. Here, 
if anywhere, are presented heroic tasks for 
the strongest natures. We want men of large 
mold and conquering spirit who will come to 
close grapple with our North American cities, 
as did Chalmers and Guthrie with the great 
cities of Scotland in their time; as others like 
William Ross of Cowcaddens in Glasgow, 
and James Hood Wilson of Fountainbridge and 
of the Barclay in Edinburgh have done in our 

* Adolf Harnack, "The Expansion of Christianity in the 
First Three Centuries," II, p. 456. See also W. M. Ramsay 
"St. Paul the Traveller and the Roman Citizen." 



36 FUTURE LEADERSHIP OF THE CHURCH 

own day ; like Hugh Price Hughes and other 
Wesleyan leaders in London and in the cities 
of the Midlands ; and Hke the present Bishop of 
London, when at Oxford House, and ever since 
in his intense activity in his metropolitan diocese. 
Only men who are ready to consecrate them- 
selves to a life of siege work should give them- 
selves to the ministry of Christ in the troubled 
heart of the twentieth-century city. 

Of almost equal importance and urgency is 
the call for more of our most competent young 
men to carry forward the work of the Church 
in the villages, small towns, and rural districts. 
We must never forget the familiar fact that the 
outlying country and the villages feed the life 
of the cities. When we consider how many 
great statesmen and men eminent in the diff'er- 
ent professions have come from the country 
where they received their first and most lasting 
religious impressions, we can better appreciate 
how vitally the work of the country minister 
affects the life of the nation. In New England, 
indeed, the life of the nation began in the coun- 
try churches. There was recently published a 
pamphlet called " Maine's Hall of Fame," con- 
taining a list of nearly 450 names of people of 



THE URGENCY 37 

the State of Maine who have become prominent 
in our national life. Of these the great ma- 
jority, including the most distinguished, came 
from the small towns and rural districts. A few 
years ago statistics gathered in the city of Bos- 
ton revealed the fact that about eighty per cent 
of the pastors and Christian workers in the 
churches of the four leading denominations of 
the city were born and reared in the country. 

The cities cannot be relied upon to furnish 
the Christian leaders of the future. The work 
of the Church in the country districts must be 
carried on with efficiency and power in order 
to insure the raising up of sufficient Christian 
forces to cultivate the city fields. Thus far the 
country and the small towns have been the 
springs of all that is freshest, most vigorous, 
and best in city life. But there is imminent 
danger that the further depletion of the popula- 
tion of the rural districts and the weakening in 
them of the position of the Church may cut off 
this source of energy and vitality. This is par- 
ticularly true in the older states and provinces. 
President Woolsey of Yale once said: "We 
must save the country town or we are lost as a 
nation.'' Moreover, it must be emphasized that, 



3^ FUTURE LEADERSHIP OF THE CHURCH 

while it is necessary to reach the rural sections 
because of their vital relation to the cities, it 
is also important to influence these rural dis- 
tricts for the sake of vast numbers of people 
who will continue to live in them.^ 

It must not be forgotten that many isolated 
towns and rural communities are in as bad con- 
dition morally as the average population of 
large cities. There are indeed country slums. 
Life being more stagnant settles on its lees. The 
effects of the larger and more varied interests 
and the swifter current of city life are wanting. 
In some respects the conditions of country life 
have improved. Parts of the country districts 
are less isolated than formerly and the people 
live under more nearly urban conditions, owing 
to better roads, the development of the trolley 
lines, the rural delivery, the wide circulation 
of metropolitan dailies and magazines, the tele- 
phone, the mail order system, the cooperative 
stores, and the union of school districts. On 
the other hand, these new conditions have linked 
the rural districts to the centers of contagion 
and contamination in the cities as never before. 

»Kenyon L. Butterfield, "Chapters in Rural Progress/* 
pp. 170, 171. 



THE URGENCY 39 

There has come to be a great change in the 
character of the rural communities, due to the 
moving away of the older population and to their 
replacement in many cases by a decidedly less 
desirable class, not in the sense that they are infe- 
rior in native ability and possibilities of large 
development, but in the sense that they are not at 
present actuated by the higher ideals and spirit 
which characterized the original population. It 
is a serious fact that the work of the Church has 
not, as a rule, been readapted to meet the changed 
conditions. There is nothing which the country 
town so much needs as the Church to evangelize, 
to hold up high ethical ideals, to promote the 
social and civic betterment of the community, 
and to stand for the supremacy of the spiritual 
life. There is need and opportunity for de- 
veloping certain forms of institutional church 
work in small towns. These communities need 
such work fully as much as do the cities. To 
promote the union of churches, so necessary 
if such plans are to be realized, demands the 
leadership of the best young men.^ The fa- 

^ Wilbert L. Anderson, "The Country Town," p. 264 ff,; 
George Frederick Wells, "What Our Country Churches 
Need" (a discussion based upon a study of the country church 
problem made by the author under the auspices of the Car- 



40 FUTURE LEADERSHIP OF THE CHURCH 

cilities for organizing a rural population are 
now so numerous and valuable that men of 
leadership and organizing genius are needed in 
every county of our states, so that the moral 
power of the rural population may be exerted 
as a whole, especially in moral crises. Recent 
political movements have surprised old-time 
politicians. " The telephone beat us," said one 
of them the other day. But it was not the tele- 
phone merely; it was the wise use of it. 

Contrary to the popular idea, many of the best 
qualified men are needed and required for the 
most destitute country fields. As one ponders 
the matter, the conviction deepens that the prob- 
lems to be solved by the minister in the village 
or town call for not one whit less ability than 
those confronting the city minister.^ This work 
will require to an unusual degree the spirit of 
heroism, self-effacement, friendliness, patience, 
and vision. It needs men capable of doing 
original work in rural sociology. It calls for 

negie Institution), Methodist Review, Vol. LXXXIX, p. 540; 
George Frederick Wells, "An Answer to the New England 
Gountry Church Question," The BiUiotheca Sacra, Vol. LXIV, 
p. 314; Kenyon L. Butterfield, " Chapters in Rural Progress," 

PP- 36, 37. 179- 

^ Kenyon L. Butterfield, " Chapters in Rural Progress," p. 38 



THE URGENCY 41 

men who are profoundly impressed with the 
strategy of this method of approach to the prob- 
lems of our time. No personality can deeply 
impress more than a certain number of people 
and that number is not so great as is often sup- 
posed. The man who is willing to enter and 
willing to stay in some apparently obscure and 
isolated field and who preserves his own habits 
of growth and his highest ideals will do an in- 
tensive work as vital and dynamic as that ac- 
complished in the midst of the totally different 
conditions which obtain in the modern city. 

One need only recall the streams of influence 
which have gone forth to the cities and into 
the life of the nation from certain humble rural 
parishes led by men of real greatness, to realize 
the force of this contention. Some of the 
greatest men in the Christian Church, not sec- 
ond to those who have occupied conspicuous 
metropolitan churches, if judged by the true 
test of results, have been country ministers little 
known and unheralded. Jonathan Edwards ex- 
erted a world-wide influence from a small parish. 
Charles Kingsley spent his whole life at Evers- 
ley, a " little patch of moorland," as he himself 
characterized it, in Southern England, a parish 



42 FUTURE LEADERSHIP OF THE CHURCH 

with but seven or eight hundred people, not one 
of whom, when he began his ministry, could 
read or write. 

Never before has the Church had such need in 
the ministry of men able to deal wisely with social 
questions. While to awaken the individual con- 
science and to bring the individual soul into vital 
relationship to Christ is and ever will be the chief 
business of the Church, nevertheless, the social 
aspects of the programme of Christianity consti- 
tute one of the distinctive calls of our generation 
to young men to enter the ministry. The work of 
Christianity is to estabUsh the Kingdom of God. 
Jesus Christ is Lord and, therefore, must reign. 
He has authority to rule social practices.^ He 
must dominate His followers and all society in 
all relationships ; domestic, commercial, indus- 
trial, educational, civic, national, and religious. 
The Gospel must vitalize and control every part 
of human life. Surely, therefore, the social ques- 
tions are a matter of concern to a Church that 
bears His name. Is not the Church concerned 
about intemperance and lust and dishonesty, 
about commercial and industrial oppression and 

» James H. F. Peile, "The Reproach of the Gospel" (Bamp- 
ton Lectures for the year 1907), p. 107 ff. 



THE URGENCY 43 

injustice, about questions of overcrowding and 
unsanitary conditions, about unlawful gains and 
unlawful expenditures, about the ostentation 
and luxury of the rich and the grinding of the 
poor, about the spirit of class prejudice and mob 
violence, about the crushing out of the lives of 
women and children, about the bitter struggle 
of poverty and allied misery and pauperism? To 
say that the Church should not interest itself 
in matters like these is to forget both the ex- 
ample and the teachings of its Founder. As a 
recent writer has eloquently insisted, the Church 
" should be swiftest to awaken . . . , bravest to 
speak . , , , and strongest to rally the moral 
forces of the community." ^ 

Not only are social questions an imperative 
concern of the Church, but it is essential to the 
Church that it should give itself whole-heartedly 
to their solution. If it is to have real power 
with the people, it must give expression to their 
deepest convictions and highest aspirations in 
the realm of practical and aggressive righteous- 
ness. If it holds back in the present social 
crisis, it will not command the following of many 

1 Walter Rauschenbusch, " Christianity and the Social 
Crisis," p. 287. 



44 FUTURE LEADERSHIP OF THE CHURCH 

keen minds and unselfish spirits. To reach and 
hold the laboring men the Church must show a 
more practical, effective, and sympathetic in- 
terest in the problems which press upon them. 
The members of the labor and socialistic move- 
ments are largely outside the Church. A friend, 
in speaking with a prominent labor leader the 
other day, asked him his opinion of the Church. 
" The Church," he replied, " we used to hate 
it. We no longer hate it, we despise it." For- 
tunately this attitude is not so typical of labor- 
ing men on this side of the Atlantic as it has 
unfortunately become on the European Con- 
tinent. Their present attitude here might more 
generally be described as one of indifference. 
They let the Church alone because it seems to 
have nothing to do with their life and burdens. 
There is, however, grave danger of their pass- 
ing from indifference to hostility. 

The Christian minister is in a position to do 
more than anyone else to break down class spirit 
between the rich and poor. He is, or may be, 
the strongest bond of union between them. 
Both confide in him, if he is what he should be. 
But he must understand and sympathize with 
both, and labor for both. There is need of con- 



THE URGENCY 45 

secrated leaders who can separate themselves 
from the special interests of classes, and who 
can judge and mediate in a disinterested way. 
Surely the Christian minister is in a unique 
position to render this vital service. Moreover, 
these social problems present to the Church a 
great opportunity. If she loses herself in help- 
ing to solve them, she will find herself in added 
growth and power and vitality. 

This is the day above all others when the 
Church needs to be heard on social questions. 
In no part of Christendom are the voice and ex- 
ample of the Church more needed just now than 
in North America. It is being imperatively 
summoned to discharge more fully its social re- 
sponsibility. It is summoned by the Will of 
God as revealed in Christ. It is summoned by 
its experience at those periods in its history 
when it has come nearest the people and won 
their hearts and allegiance. It is summoned by 
the demand of the modern age for industrial 
freedom and justice, civic righteousness, and 
political purity. It is summoned by the deep 
undertone of the masses subjected to selfish- 
ness, injustice, oppression, and cruelties. It is 
summoned by the anger of strong men, the 



46 FUTURE LEADERSHIP OF THE CHURCH 

despair of women, and the sobs of the children. 
If the Christian Church with its present mem- 
bership and influence would accept heartily the 
simple teachings of Jesus Christ about its so- 
cial responsibility and put them into practice, 
our society would soon be filled with ideas and 
sentiments which would make it impossible for 
social wrongs to endure. 

If the Church is to rise to its great responsi- 
bility it must have qualified leaders. It must 
have men of insight and sagacity capable of 
studying and understanding social conditions. 
They must be men who can discover and deal 
with the causes of misery and wrong as well as 
with the misery and wrong themselves. " It is 
no use, and will be no use, merely trying to save 
the wounded ; we must stop the battle." ^ They 
must be men of balance who, in preaching a 
social Gospel, will continue to press even more 
earnestly a personal Gospel, knowing that with- 
out this it will cease to be a triumphant social 
Gospel. Only in bringing to bear upon the 
hearts of individual men the superhuman power 
of Christ and thus transforming and energizing 

»R. J. Campbell, "Christianity and the Social Order," p. 
i66. 



THE URGENCY 47 

them is there hope of effecting any thorough- 
going and permanent changes in their social 
condition and relationships. Ministers must 
avoid becoming so busy with the affairs of the 
communities in which they live that they fail to 
be fountains of real spiritual refreshment to 
their people. Otherwise they defeat the reali- 
zation of the largest and best results of social 
service. If the spiritual life of men be properly 
maintained, that life will then be manifested in 
countless practical ways involved in the social 
mission of the Church. The leaders of the 
Church must be men of untiring patience in 
sowing seed. They must be men of prophetic 
spirit and heroism — able to stir and, if neces- 
sary, create the social conscience of the Church. 
They must be men of reality who will not only 
talk and write, but above all will lead the 
Church in sacrificial service, the true medium of 
the power of Christ for the regeneration of 
society. We need men who will face the so- 
cial and civic wrongs of our day as did Chrysos- 
tom in Constantinople, Savonarola in Florence, 
Knox in Scotland, Calvin in Geneva, Wesley in 
England in his time, and Maurice and Kingsley 
at a later day. 



48 FUTURE LEADERSHIP OF THE CHURCH 

More young men possessing exceptional 
strength and resources must devote themselves 
to the Christian ministry if the nation is to be- 
come and remain truly great. What makes a 
nation truly great? Not its geographical extent, 
not the number of its inhabitants, not the num- 
ber of its millionaires nor the aggregate amount 
of its wealth, not the strength of its army and 
navy, not even the knowledge or intelligence of 
its people. (The character and spirit of its people 
alone make a nation really great. History shows 
convincingly that character cannot be made 
symmetrical and strong, and the spirit of a 
people preserved in freedom and vigor, without 
the superhuman help of the Christian religion.) 
Therefore, this calls for a great expansion and 
strengthening of the Church of North America 
and of its activities. This in turn requires a 
succession of young men for the ministry pos- 
sessing adequate equipment and the gift of pro- 
phetic leadership; that is, young men who have 
a vision of what a nation must become if the 
people are to advance along the paths of right- 
eousness, and who have also the strength of 
conviction and purpose and the eloquence of sin- 
cerity to lead the people along these paths. 



THE URGENCY 49 

The nation can be saved and conserved only 
by Christian character. Follow far enough any 
one of the grave problems now before the coun- 
try and you will come to the one point — the need 
of better men. Only as a nation is steadied, 
guided, and inspired by Christian principles will 
it fulfill its destiny; otherwise it will pass the 
way of other nations which have perished from 
the earth. 

" He who will not be ruled by the rudder 
Shall be ruled by the rock." 

The greatest peril of the nation is secularism. 
Only ideals, enterprises, and enthusiasms great 
enough and spiritual enough to lift men out of 
and above our vast material and selfish interests 
can save us. On grounds of/ highest patriotism, 
therefore, more of the choice^ spirits among the 
young men of the nation are called upon to con- 
secrate themselves to the ministry of our Lord 
and Saviour Jesus Christ. 

Men of statesmanlike qualities are required in 
the Christian ministry to-day in numbers greater 
than ever before, to direct the irresistible move- 
ments of cooperation, federation, and union 
which are gathering momentum among Chris- 
tians all over the world. The mere statement of 



50 FUTURE LEADERSHIP OF THE CHURCH 

the proposition carries conviction with it. One 
of the most highly significant tendencies is in 
the direction of a more real and practical unity 
among Christians. It is manifesting itself in all 
parts of the world. It has reached different 
stages in different lands, and the forms in which 
it is expressing itself are varied, interesting, and 
instructive. It is a movement which cannot be 
withstood ; being essentially in line with the 
prayer of our Lord, it is irresistible. To guide 
it into right channels and forms, calls for the 
highest type of constructive statesmanship. It 
should appeal to the strongest minds, the largest 
hearts, and the spirits with widest vision. 

The need of developing on the North Ameri- 
can continent a strong base to supply and main- 
tain the force needed in the non-Christian world, 
constitutes in itself a sufficient call for more 
young men of vision and capacity for achieve- 
ment to enter the Christian ministry. The very 
purpose and magnitude of the foreign missionary 
enterprise support this claim. What are the aim 
and scope of the foreign missionary enterprise? 
To make Jesus Christ known, loved, and obeyed 
among the multitudinous inhabitants of the non- 
Christian world. In other words it means bring- 



THE URGENCY $1 

ing home to the Family of God the entire non- 
Christian world for whom Christ died, and to 
whom He has commanded us to go. It is the 
world-wide establishment of His Kingdom. A 
great responsibility for accomplishing this under- 
taking rests upon the Christians of Great Britain, 
of the United States, and of Canada, if we may 
judge by the availability and offering of lives, 
money, and directive energy. Owing to the 
greater and ever-increasing resources of the 
United States and Canada, the share of the North 
American Church in this undertaking must be 
greatly enlarged. 

The present is a time of unprecedented oppor- 
tunity and crisis throughout the non-Christian 
world. This is the first generation in which it 
could be said that the whole world is known 
and accessible. The forces of Christianity are 
widely distributed and occupy most of the com- 
manding positions. Native churches have been 
developed and have acquired a power of initia- 
tive and leadership which makes possible a 
great advance. Administrative machinery and 
supporting movements among the men, the 
women, and the youth of the Church have been 
developed on the home field to an extent ade- 



52 FUTURE LEADERSHIP OF THE CHURCH 

quale to the successful prosecution of a vastly 
greater campaign. A body of over 18,000 mis- 
sionaries has, in a great measure, mastered the 
conditions involved in a world-wide extension 
of Christ's Kingdom and has acquired a fund 
of experience which makes plain the lines along 
which the war of peaceful conquest must be 
waged.^ The peoples and races of practically 
every part of the non-Christian world are show- 
ing themselves more responsive to the Christian 
appeal than at any time in the history of the 
Christian religion. Social, educational, and re- 
ligious movements of continental sweep, are in 
progress, and furnish conditions which, if im- 
proved, will facilitate the realization of the aims 
of the Christian propaganda. The talk about 
crises has certainly been overdone, but beyond 
shadow of doubt the present is the time of times 
for pressing the advantage which the forces of 
Christianity now have on virtually every conti- 
nent of the globe. 

Why does the Church falter on the threshold 
of such an unparalleled opportunity ? Because it 
lacks the vision of the need and opportunity, and 

» Statistical Table in The Missionary Review of the World. 
New Series. Vol. XXI, p. 62. 



THE URGENCY S3 

consequently lacks the realization of an obligation 
such as would issue in prayer and sacrifice on 
the part of North American Christians. This in 
turn is only tantamount to saying that there are 
not a sufficient number of leaders of the ag- 
gressive forces of Christianity on this continent 
who themselves are inspired by a vision of the 
world evangelized and who are, therefore, so 
ordering their lives and so proclaiming the 
truth which stirs their own souls that the mem- 
bers of the churches both see and seize the 
opportunity. The greatest problem of foreign 
missions is not on the foreign field, but on the 
home field and, doubtless, the most critical 
aspect of it is that of providing adequate leader- 
ship. To secure the men, money, and prayer 
needed, and that before it is too late, we must 
have a ministry filled with the missionary spirit. 
The Church is ready to be led. The minister 
must lead. But he must be a large man — one 
who thinks in world terms, one who in his own 
soul and practice is obedient to the world-wide 
vision, and one who has the courage to lead his 
people in what is, for the first time, literally 
a world-wide campaign. We must have g^eat 
leadership for great movements. 



THE OBSTACLES 



Ill 

THE OBSTACLES 

The secular and materialistic spirit of the age 
is a powerful cause in diverting young men from 
entering the ministry. All ages have been ma- 
terialistic, but at no time in the past and in no 
part of the world have the allurements of ma- 
terial progress and success been so potent with 
young men as they are to-day in North America. 
We have an immense continent to develop, with 
immeasurable latent resources. The prodigious 
effort involved in such development has insensi- 
bly led to a concentration of thought and effort 
on the seen and temporal. Slowly, in multitudes 
of families and communities, the spiritual inter- 
ests have been pushed into the background. A 
secular atmosphere has been gradually generated. 
The unparalleled prosperity of the United States 
and Canada, with the attendant opportunities for 
acquiring wealth, has dazzled the youth of this 
57 



58 FUTURE LEADERSHIP OF THE CHURCH 

generation. Material success is the charmed 
word of our present-day vocabulary. It affects 
strongly even the boys. Visible material prog- 
ress impresses youth. No live boy can fail to be 
interested and affected by the whir of industry. 
Young men are even more powerfully influ- 
enced by our material civilization. They find not 
only the dailies, but also most of the secular week- 
lies and the monthly magazines, and even re- 
ligious periodicals, given up to exploiting the 
material achievements of the day and to mag- 
nifying the men of great wealth. They observe 
the enormous power wielded by captains of in- 
dustry and their control of the weal or woe of 
thousands. In the schools and colleges they con- 
stantly see the growing prominence and popular- 
ity of the courses of study which look toward the 
development of material resources. Even in 
Christian homes the topic of most absorbing in- 
terest in conversation is money and the things 
that money can buy. Young men come to feel 
that success means the accumulation of prop- 
erty or the gaining of great worldly power and 
prominence rather than self-denying service for 
God and man. This cause does not operate only 
through its direct influence upon the boys. It 



THE OBSTACLES 59 

makes itself felt, not so openly but no less po- 
tently, through its influence upon the girls. The 
thoughts of young men concerning life and pur- 
poses in life are strongly, silently, incessantly af- 
fected by the ideals and unformulated wishes of 
the girls with whom they associate. If the girls 
thought more of the ministry, the boys would 
think more of it too. 

Parental ambition looks to worldly prefer- 
ment. *' Many nominally Christian households 
are pervaded by a worldly tone and an atmos- 
phere of unconscious mammon-worship. It dis- 
solves the moral energy and weakens the ideal 
impulse of religion in our best boys and young 
men. For this, it seems to me, is the main 
cause of the failures of the Church as a social 
organization for the service of God and human- 
ity, to beget and nurture enough strong young 
men for her leadership." * Dr. Rainsford, at 
a conference in New York, told of a member 
of his church who, in speaking of the possibility 
of her son entering the ministry, said, " Charlie 
is not clever. What do you suppose he could 
earn as a minister ? " Dr. Rainsford replied, 

* Letter from Professor Henry van Dyke in the Archives of 
the World's Student Christian Federation. 



(5o FUTURE LEADERSHIP OF THE CHURCH 

" He would be lucky if he ever received $5,000." 
'* Why," said she, " his father is getting $50,000." 
Exit Charlie from the prospective ministry. How 
can homes in which money-getting and pleasure- 
seeking are the chief ideals produce a supply of 
men who will be ready to embrace a profession 
which involves self-denial and simplicity of life? 
Ministers have always come chiefly from 
the country, but country boys now are in closer 
touch with the cities and their alluring oppor- 
tunities for acquiring wealth, and therefore an 
increasing number of them are being drawn 
into money-making pursuits. This secular spirit 
of the age has invaded the Church itself. The 
results are seen in the far too prevalent and 
growing worldliness, pleasure-seeking, self-in- 
dulgence, and mammon-worship which charac- 
terize so many professed Christians. It is just 
as true to say that there is a secular temper in 
the religion of our day as that a religious temper 
is permeating all things secular. Such are not 
the atmosphere and spirit which produce a suf- 
ficient number of the right kind of candidates for 
the ministry.^ Still, it should be insisted that the 

1 A. T. Mahan, "The Apparent Decadence of the Church's 
Influence," The Churchman, Vol. LXXXVII, p. 345. 



THE OBSTACLES 6l 

pervasiveness, dominating power, and seriousness 
of this deterrent influence constitute a challenge 
to many of the best men to devote themselves to 
this calling since the ministry furnishes the van- 
tage ground from which the secular spirit can 
most effectively be resisted and overcome. 

The attractions and possibilities of the so-called 
secular pursuits, coupled with the fact that so 
many young men believe that in such callings 
they can do more good and work with fewer re- 
strictions as laymen than they could in the 
ministry, militate especially against more young 
men entering the Christian ministry. The pro- 
portion of increase in the number of young men 
entering these pursuits has been far greater than 
of those choosing the ministry. During thirty- 
six years (1870-1906), the number of divinity 
students in the United States increased but 137 
per cent, whereas the number of medical stu- 
dents increased 302 per cent, the number of law 
students 848 per cent, and the number entering 
commercial and industrial pursuits increased at 
an enormously greater rate than the number 
entering the professions of medicine and law.^ 

* ** Report of the Commissioner of Education for the Year 
Ending June 30, 1906," I, p. 595. 



62 FUTURE LEADERSHIP OF THE CHURCH 

The avenues of life opening before educated 
men are much more numerous than formerly. 
In England, instead of the old narrow choice, 
" The Army, the Navy, the Church, and the 
Bar,'* outside which it was scarcely thought pos- 
sible to find a respectable career, a young man 
may now enter any one of a score of callings. 
So in North America, there were but three 
learned professions — ^the ministry, law, and medi- 
cine — but now there are many: for example, 
journalism, teaching, architecture, civil engi- 
neering, mechanical engineering, electrical en- 
gineering, mining engineering, naval engineering, 
chemistry, dentistry, forestry, scientific agricul- 
ture, and many others in the realm of applied sci- 
ence. In new countries, in particular, the open- 
ings for young men of talent have been greatly 
multiplied. 

In these days it is not accurate to speak of 
such callings as secular, because our generation 
more than any which has preceded it has seen a 
breaking down of the lines separating the secular 
and religious. Men now speak of all useful call- 
ings as sacred. The ministry itself, by its con- 
stant and faithful teaching about the place of 
Christ as Lord, has done most to obliterate the 



THE OBSTACLES 63 

distinction between secular and sacred callings. 
This change, as Dr. R. W. Dale so well empha- 
sized, is due to " the earnestness with which 
many of us have insisted for the last thirty or 
forty years on the sacredness of industry, com- 
merce, literature, art, and the liberal professions. 
There has been a vehement protest against any 
sharp contrast between the religious and the 
secular life. To the Christian man . . . there 
are no sacred places . . . times . . . persons. 
Christ is Lord of all the provinces of human 
life, and in all of them His servants may faith- 
fully do His will." ^ 

Thus it is that many young men to-day hon- 
estly believe that they can serve God and man in 
other callings better than in the ministry. Some, 
for example, think that the layman who makes 
money and gives it to Christian enterprises can 
do more to advance Christ's Kingdom than the 
pastor of a single church, no matter how eloquent 
and efficient he may be. They overlook th^ fact 
that some ministers have turned hundreds of 
thousands of dollars into Christian channels, 
whereas in business they probably would not have 
made and given more than a small proportion of 

> "The Epistle of James and Other Discourses," pp. 282, 283. 



64 FUTURE LEADERSHIP OF THE CHURCH 

what they have thus influenced. Others think 
that some callings, such as teaching, afford 
larger opportunity to impress character as well 
as to advance the bounds of human knowl- 
edge than does the ministry. The multiplica- 
tion and development of higher educational in- 
stitutions have called for a large number of 
specialists in the higher ranges of the teaching 
profession; consequently, many young men who 
in the past would naturally by reason of their 
intellectual tastes have gone into the minis- 
try, have been drawn into the profession of 
teaching.^ 

We are not considering here the large num- 
ber of young men who have entered these call- 
ings with selfish motives, but the number, also 
large, who have done so with the sincere motive 
and desire to be in a position to render service 
to their fellow-men. When it is pointed out that 
there is not an adequate increase in the number 
of young men entering the ministry, it should be 
emphasized that this does not mean that the vol- 
ume of unselfish service is decreasing and that 

' W. J. Tucker, " The Religious Motive in Education as 
Illustrated in the History of American Colleges," in "Volume 
of Proceedings of the Second International Congregational 
Council" (1899), p. 219. 



THE OBSTACLES 65 

the number and proportion of young men who 
want to serve are not increasing, for that is cer- 
tainly not the case. The spirit of sacrifice and 
service for the good of mankind is stronger and 
more widely prevalent than ever before. This is 
the most encouraging fact of our generation. 
Though the number of clergymen is not increas- 
ing as we should like to see it, it is a fact which 
ought to inspire with hope all who are interested 
in the progress of religion that the spirit, tone, 
and efficiency of the laity are being so greatly ele- 
vated. No greater service has been rendered by 
the ministry in recent years than that of facili- 
tating the development of this spirit among lay- 
men. But there is no great truth which may not 
be perverted or pressed too far. The warning 
needs to be sounded out, that unless there be an 
adequate increase in the number of able young 
men entering the ministry to devote their en- 
tire time and their large powers to promoting 
the highest standards among the Christians of 
our day, the Church will soon cease — certainly 
within a generation — to have strong laymen 
dominated by this conception of Christlike ser- 
vice. Strong men are required to influence 
strong men. 



66 FUTURE LEADERSHIP OF THE CHURCH 

Other opportunities for Christian service as a 
life-work have attracted some young men who 
might have devoted themselves to the Christian 
ministry. During the past twenty years, since 
the Student Volunteer Movement for Foreign 
Missions was organized, about 2,500 young men, 
who were volunteers, besides many young 
women, have gone to foreign fields under the 
missionary societies of the United States and 
Canada. Several hundreds of students who 
were not volunteers have also been sent by these 
boards. The total number of new male mis- 
sionaries who have gone out within this period 
has probably not exceeded 4,000. If we were 
to eliminate those who have devoted themselves 
to medical, educational, and industrial missions, 
it would leave about 3,000 young men who have 
entered the form of mission service correspond- 
ing to the Christian ministry at home. These 
3,000 should be counted as having entered the 
ministry, though, of course, they have not aug- 
mented the supply of pastors in North America. 
But even had they stayed at home and entered 
the ministry here, their number is so small 
compared with the 140,000 men in the Prot- 
estant ministry of the United States and Canada 



THE OBSTACLES 67 

that it would not have supplied the great need.^ 
It should be emphasized, moreover, that the 
propaganda which resulted in the going forth 
of these 3,000 to foreign lands has resulted in 
sending an even greater number into the min- 
istry at home, who, in all probability, would not 
otherwise have devoted themselves to this call- 
ing. In the first place, many hundreds of vol- 
unteers, who have been prevented by sufficient 
reasons from carrying out their original pur- 
pose, have entered the home ministry, and it is 
interesting to note that a very large proportion 
of them have gone into the most destitute fields 
of North America. In the second place, large 
numbers of young men in the colleges, who 
could not volunteer, have been led as a result 
of being summoned to face the missionary ap- 
peal, to consecrate themselves to the Christian 
ministry at home. 

A considerable number of young men wish to 
devote themselves to the service of mankind, but 
do not feel drawn to the Christian ministry. 
They have been touched by the moral and spir- 

»H. K. Carroll, "Statistics of the Churches of the United 
States" (for 1907). The Christian Advocate, Vol. LXXXIII, 
p. 138. "The Statesman's Year-Book" (1908), p. 284. 



68 FUTURE LEADERSHIP OF THE CHURCH 

itual meaning of life, and desire to spend their 
lives in practical helpfulness. They are, as a 
rule, men of talent, and are found in the full 
stream of the intellectual life of the universi- 
ties. These men see that it is no longer neces- 
sary to enter the ministry in order to express 
their moral and spiritual enthusiasm. They find 
various other altruistic professions which appeal 
to them. Some become secretaries or managers 
of charitable or other philanthropic organizations 
and institutions. Others devote their lives to social 
settlements, neighborhood work, boys' and other 
clubs. Still others become secretaries of mission- 
ary societies and other benevolent societies of the 
churches. But, in the aggregate, the number en- 
tering these forms of service is not very large. 

Some have feared that the secretaryship 
of the Young Men's Christian Association 
has absorbed too many men of capacity who 
might otherwise have entered the ministry. As 
a matter of fact, only 800 college men entered the 
Association work during the decade, 1897 to 
1906, and of these less than 300 have continued 
in Association work.^ Of the 500 who did not 

> Statistics furnished by John Glover, the head of the 
Secretarial Bureau of the International Committee of Young 
Men's Christian Associations. 



THE OBSTACLES 69 

continue, a large proportion of those really quali- 
fied entered missionary service or the Christian 
ministry. Of the 300 who have continued in 
Association work, but a small proportion are rec- 
ognized as possessing special qualifications for 
the ministry. These 300 have been drawn from 
between twenty and thirty denominations of the 
United States and Canada. Only a superficial ob- 
server would say that "^he Association has drawn 
into permanent service, in any considerable num- 
ber, young men who would probably have entered 
the ministry. Indeed, the requirements of the 
Association secretaryship are for the most part 
such that it draws men who would be apt other- 
wise to enter business careers. 

The influence of the Young Men's Christian 
Association, instead of keeping qualified young 
men from entering the ministry, has become one 
of the principal factors in leading them to de- 
vote themselves to this calling. While this is es- 
pecially noticeable in the student Associations, the 
city Associations also send many of their mem- 
bers into the ministry. For example, during the 
past twenty-one years the general secretary of 
the Association in Houston, Texas, influenced 
thirty young men in his Bible class to become 



70 FUTURE LEADERSHIP OF THE CHURCH 

ministers. Recent developments in the boys' 
work and the county work, not to mention other 
phases, give promise that the general Associa- 
tion movement will become increasingly useful 
in enlisting candidates for the ministry. 

Attention should not be diverted from the 
main issue. Our controversy should not be with 
these other forms of Christian and altruistic 
service which, as has been shown, in comparison 
with the number who have entered the ministry, 
have attracted but a small number of men, all of 
whom are greatly strengthening the hands of the 
Church; but it should be with those other and 
so-called secular careers, which are absorbing 
too large a share of the brilliant young men of 
our generation. 

Many young men are automatically diverted 
from entering the ministry as a result of having 
followed courses of study which do not naturally 
prepare them for meeting the present require- 
ments of most of the theological seminaries. The 
developments of modern science, with the de- 
mand for men specially trained in scientific stud- 
ies, have led to a comparatively recent division 
of school courses into classical and modern. 
The latter have become increasingly prominent* 



THE OBSTACLES 71 

Large numbers of the brightest boys go into 
the science courses. But the modern or science 
courses do not prepare young men for the regu- 
lar theological curriculum. Omission of clas- 
sical studies makes it difficult for young men, 
who later have the ministry brought to their 
attention, to . give it favorable consideration 
owing to the fact that they will be required 
to retrace their steps in order to study Greek 
and, it may be, other subjects also. 

The science courses, owing to the elimination 
of the group of philosophical studies, tend to 
keep young men from the point of view which 
is most favorable to their being impressed by the 
call to the ministry. The logical result of the 
division of college courses into classical, scien- 
tific, and other groups is that boys in the pre- 
paratory schools must not only choose their 
course of college studies, but in doing this must 
determine their careers in a greater measure than 
many people have realized. Most parents do not 
consider where the studies begun by their boys 
at eleven or twelve years of age will logically and 
practically lead. Most schoolmasters do not con- 
cern themselves with this question. More should 
be done to guide both parents and boys at the 



72 FUTURE LEADERSHIP OF THE CHURCH 

time when the courses of study are being 
chosen in the schools.^ 

The theological seminaries should do more 
to adjust their curricula to meet the needs of 
young men who go to them direct from the 
science courses.^ They should make more favor- 
able provision for admitting such men, as some 
of them have recently begun to do. While a 
young man looking toward the ministry is at 
a marked disadvantage if he has not had the 
proper start in the study of Greek and philos- 
ophy, there are great advantages in his having 
had thorough preparation in science. The at- 
titude of mind acquired in the study of science 
is an invaluable asset to the Christian minister. 
The habits of accuracy, reserve in statement, and 
freedom from exaggeration which should be the 
result of careful scientific studies, are of first im- 
portance to the preacher. Besides this, ministers 
should understand the scientific spirit which char- 
acterizes so many of the best minds of this age. 

* This subject is helpfully treated by Professor F. W. 
Kelsey, of the University of Michigan in a paper soon to 
appear in a printed symposium on the value of humanistic 
studies as a preparation for the study of theology, 

2 See W. R. Harper, "The Trend in Higher Education/' 
Chapter XIV. See also C. W. Eliot, *' Educational Reform," 
Chapter IV. 



THE OBSTACLES 73 

Some young men hold aloof from entering the 
ministry because they are not yet clear in their 
own personal faith. Many young men, at the age 
of college life, are more or less unsettled in re- 
ligious matters. The period of intellectual diffi- 
culties concerning the Christian faith and that of 
the choice of a life-work often coincide. It is not 
strange, therefore, that some of these men, in the 
midst of the intellectual struggle for their faith, 
decide against the ministry. Conversation with 
men of this class discovers in their minds a gen- 
eral sense of insecurity. Their views are unset- 
tled as to the nature and authority of the Bible. 
One finds not only questioning as to the nature 
of Old Testament revelation, but a serious re- 
crudescence of skepticism about the New Testa- 
ment. This sense of uncertainty about the char- 
acter and scope of Divine revelation is deepened 
in the minds of these young men by their obser- 
vation of ministers who themselves are unset- 
tled, and who give public expression to their 
doubts. 

In the midst of restatements of religious truth, 
resulting from the teachings of evolution, as well 
as from literary criticism and philosophical stud- 
ies, some students have been thrown into con- 



74 FUTURE LEADERSHIP OF THE CHURCH 

fusion. The battle which continues to be waged 
around the Person of Christ has also resulted in 
seriously perplexing many an earnest soul as to 
the corner-stone doctrine of the Christian faith, 
the Deity of Jesus Christ. Moreover, the atmos- 
phere in which not a few young men find them- 
selves is unfavorable to the definite acceptance of 
Divine Revelation and dogmatic creed. Young 
men doubt whether they can accept traditional 
theological views and subscribe to certain creedal 
statements without sacrificing their intellectual 
honesty. They may believe much, but they 
question whether they believe enough to become 
teachers, propagators, and custodians of the 
Christian religion. Without doubt there are a 
number of young men who are real Christians, 
but who, because of this unrest and lack of certi- 
tude, think they must wait for clearer light be- 
fore they can go forth to preach. They feel that 
they must first think out and define their own 
position, at least on all essentials. 

This cause does not deter as many young men 
from entering the ministry as do some other 
difficulties, but it does concern certain men of 
more than average caliber and conscientiousness. 
These intellectual difficulties do not keep strong 



THE OBSTACLES 75 

men from entering the ministry to-day as much 
as they did twenty or thirty years ago. This 
opinion is shared by many on both sides of the 
Atlantic. Such difficulties operate less now than 
formerly because many Christian leaders, regard- 
ing as transitional the state in which these men 
find themselves, have come to feel that a wise 
tolerance as to formal statements of belief at this 
period best facilitates the leading of such young 
men into settled convictions regarding essential 
religious truth. They concede that a certain lati- 
tude in such matters may be permitted. They 
recognize that toward young men in doubt, the 
right attitude is that their views are not final. 
If their views were final, they might not serve 
usefully in the ministry. Leaders of the Church 
consider that faith is a living thing, that it must 
grow, and, therefore, that it cannot be expected 
that young men just entering the ministry will 
believe in a complete way all that older men have 
come to believe through years of experience and 
reflection. The fundamentals are few and belief 
in them alone should be demanded. 

Instead of the present intellectual freedom and 
activity and its resulting unrest being permitted 
to prevent men from entering the ministry, 



76 FUTURE LEADERSHIP OF THE CHURCH 

it should be used as a ground of appeal for 
strong men to devote themselves to this calling 
in order that they may be in the best position to 
help a multitude of people in real need. The man 
who has fought and won his own battle with 
doubt, is able to render assistance sympathetically 
and effectively to others sorely perplexed and 
troubled with their unanswered religious ques- 
tions. It should also be borne in mind that the 
Church is more in harmony with unfettered 
modern scholarship than is commonly believed. 
Christian preachers and teachers are availing 
themselves more than ever of the assured results 
of scientific investigation to state religious truth 
in new and effective forms. The Church wel- 
comes all the light that science and reverent criti- 
cism can throw upon the problems of religious 
life and faith. 

Some men are deterred from entering the 
ministry because they fear they will not have 
liberty of expression. The prevalent scientific 
spirit fosters the desire for intellectual freedom. 
These men think that in the ministry this free- 
dom is impossible; that they cannot speak out 
frankly the truth as they see it; and, therefore, 
that they cannot, with intellectual sincerity, con- 



THE OBSTACLES 77 

form to what they understand their church re- 
quires. Some of the keenest among their num- 
ber conscientiously believe that the churches 
have dogmatic standards for membership and 
ordination which are untrue to the teaching, em- 
phasis, and spirit of Christ. They are con- 
fronted by the spectacle of trials for heresy, of 
the exiling of men from the confidence and com- 
panionship of their fellow ministers, of the 
persecution of certain ministers as a result of 
the misunderstanding of their position by the 
people whom they unselfishly serve — all this and 
much more, not because of any lapse in char- 
acter, not because of any lack of efficiency and 
ability in discharging the regular functions of 
the ministry, not because of any failure in the 
spirit of service, but because of not expressing 
their religious convictions in terms which their 
own ecclesiastical bodies have formulated and 
regard as essential. In some cases these results 
are due to the minister standing for truth, in 
other cases to his standing for error. But be 
the causes what they may, young men noticing 
the facts, perhaps superficially, shrink from en- 
tering a calling in which they fear that if they 
are honest with themselves and with others they 



78 FUTURE LEADERSHIP OF THE CHURCH 

may be subjected to persecution, and, therefore, 
hold back from thus placing themselves within 
ecclesiastical trammels. 

Apart entirely from lack of freedom of ex- 
pression regarding questions of belief, some 
fear that the minister may not be allowed to 
proclaim his honest convictions about the ap- 
plication of the principles and spirit of Christ 
to the personal, social, industrial, civic, and na- 
tional problems of our time. They see, for 
example, some ministers who are apparently 
tied hand and foot by fear of offending rich 
members of their congregations if they teach 
what they know to be the truth; they see others 
equally trammeled by their desire to say noth- 
ing which might alienate from the Church the 
laboring classes. They observe that many min- 
isters are failing to sound out the prophetic and 
heroic note in the face of grave social injustice, 
civic corruption, and political wrongs, and they 
infer that in the ministry it is impossible for a 
man to be true to his own best self and to give 
voice to the deepest convictions of his soul. 
But it needs to be indicated to strong young 
men, facing the question of their life-work, that 
hampered though the pulpit may appear to be. 



THE OBSTACLES 79 

the ministry is the most nearly free of all the 
professions. One need think only of the limita- 
tions by which the average journalist, or pro- 
fessor of political economy, or Congressman finds 
himself circumscribed in respect to the matter 
of freedom of expression. Moreover, quite apart 
from realms in which limitations are experi- 
enced, the minister has vast and practically 
boundless fields of doctrinal and ethical truth, 
both of vital and permanent value, concerning 
which he may express himself with perfect free- 
dom. 

The high conception which some young men 
entertain of the moral requirements of the min- 
istry holds them back from devoting themselves 
to this calling. They have such an exalted ideal 
of the spiritual character of the true minister 
and such a sense of their own unworthiness that 
they shrink from entering the ministry. They 
feel incompetent because they conscientiously 
believe that this profession calls for a higher 
order of manhood than they possess. Young 
men have a strong sense of reality. They be- 
lieve that the minister should practice what he 
preaches, and yet they recognize that he must 
hold up the highest ideals and exhort people to 



8o FUTURE LEADERSHIP OF THE CHURCH 

conform to nothing less than the standards of 
Christ. Is it strange that they look upon re- 
ligion as easier to face if they do not have to 
preach about it weekly, or that they should con- 
clude that it will be easier to be honest outside 
the pulpit than in it? The Archbishop of Can- 
terbury, in an address at the Annual Conference 
of the Diocese of Canterbury in the year 1907, 
thus called attention to this deterrent influence: 
" Some men, who would in the old days have 
been ordained readily enough, shrink now — and 
it is to their credit — from facing the higher 
standard of earnestness which is rightly looked 
for." 1 

On the other hand, their knowledge of the 
inconsistencies and shortcomings of some men 
whom they know in the ministry, and of some 
ministerial candidates with whom they have as- 
sociated in college, leads young men not to wish 
to expose themselves to the possibility of mak- 
ing similar lapses. The very publicity of the 
failure of ministers makes such young men the 
more fearful. Moreover, men of the right sort 
are often doubtful about satisfying the expecta- 
tions of modern congregations which are so 
^ The Gfuirdian, No. 3210. (June 12, 1907.) 



THE OBSTACLES 8l 

keenly critical. They vividly recall much com- 
mon table talk and the social gossip reflecting 
scornfully on the ministry, and the all too fre- 
quent unfavorable comment of the secular press 
and current fiction. Examples of ministers 
unjustly pilloried by modern society, even by 
members of churches, have exerted their un- 
conscious but real influence. In connection, 
however, with this deterrent it should be borne 
in mind that in these days when the social 
aspects of Christianity are being emphasized as 
never before, there are coming to be no less 
exacting moral demands made on Christian lay- 
men than those now made on Christian min- 
isters. The very essence of the New Testa- 
ment is the holding up of one standard for all 
Christians. The superior sanctity of the min- 
ister is a later Roman Catholic and mediaeval 
idea. Furthermore, we should remind young 
men that, notwithstanding all that has been 
stated, the true and able minister of Christ has 
the respect and support of the best people both 
in and outside the Church in almost every com- 
munity. 

The misconception that the ministry does not 
offer adequate scope for the strongest men ex- 



82 FUTURE LEADERSHIP OF THE CHURCH 

plains why some young men do not devote them- 
selves to this calling. That there is such a mis- 
conception no one questions who has had any 
considerable touch with young men. How can 
we account for it? The impression that some 
theological schools do not maintain so high in- 
tellectual standards, and do not have so exacting 
requirements as do the medical and law schools 
with which a young man is familiar, explains it 
in some cases. 

These young men regard with disfavor the 
practice of granting to theological students finan- 
cial help and other facilities that are not also 
granted to students preparing for other useful 
callings. They know cases among their fellow 
students of men receiving such aid who did not 
need it, and of others who, because of their man- 
ner of life, did not deserve it. They have seen 
some men of no special promise encouraged by 
plans of pecuniary assistance to enter the minis- 
try — men who probably would never have suc- 
ceeded in entering this calling through their 
own self-denial, aggressiveness, and persistence. 
They have been influenced by such current maga- 
zine comment as the following : " Can self-reli- 
ance be produced where there is no reliance upon 



THE OBSTACLES Ss 

self? Can independence be developed when a 
man is taught first of all to lean upon others? 
Can moral muscle be developed or the spiritual 
vertebrae be stiffened by the ' aid ' which saves 
from stress and strain? ... To ask these ques- 
tions is to answer them." ^ They are impressed 
by the conviction thus expressed by Phillips 
Brooks : " I am convinced that the ministry can 
never have its true dignity or power till it is 
cut aloof from mendicancy, — till young men 
whose hearts are set on preaching make their 
way to the pulpit by the same energy and 
through the same difficulties which meet count- 
less young men on their way to business and 
the bar." ^ 

It may as well be admitted in dealing with 
young men who have been influenced by this dif- 
ficulty, that there are cases in which the aid 
granted to students for the ministry did no good 
— in fact, did harm. At the same time it should 
be shown that many students need to be aided, 
but that the aid they receive must be the aid that 
truly helps. Self-denial and strenuous effort are 

»E. T. Tomlinson, "Coddling Theological Students," in 
The World's Work, Vol. X, p. 6154. 
' "Lectures on Preaching," p. 36. 



84 FUTURE LEADERSHIP OF THE CHURCH 

necessary to develop power, and the assistance 
granted should not be sufficient to prevent their 
receiving this development. There should be no 
assistance granted beyond actual need. When 
the financial cooperation is not in the form of a 
loan to be repaid in due time, the aid given 
should so far as possible be conditioned upon 
service rendered, or upon attainment in scholar- 
ship. If the United States may fitly train men at 
West Point and Annapolis free of cost in order 
that the Army and Navy may be provided with 
capable officers, it has been argued that the 
Church may also provide for the training of its 
ministers without the imputation of unfavorable 
results. But, in this case, the Church should ex- 
ercise equal thoroughness in the selection of its 
candidates, and should expose them to rigid tests. 
Moreover, just as the Government requires 
that graduates of the Military Academy shall de- 
vote four years to the service of the nation,^ 
should not the Church require that those whom 
it educates devote a period of years to service 
in destitute fields or in whatever places, in the 
judgment of the leaders of the Church, their 

» "The Military Laws of the United States" (1908), par. 
1484. 



THE OBSTACLES 85 

work is most needed? If the theological student 
is made to realize that he is received on the 
same footing as other students, and that his 
isolation is not a professional isolation based 
on privilege, he will gain in self-respect and 
also commend his calling more fully to other 
students. 

The absence of men from certain churches, 
and the thought that these churches have to deal 
mostly with women and children, have helped 
to cause, in some minds, the misconception that 
the ministry does not present sufficient opportu- 
nity to exercise the talents of strong men. 
Again, the young man notices that some city 
churches are made up of people of wealth, 
culture, and refinement, and decides that work 
with such people would be too easy and along 
too soft lines. Or, his special acquaintance with 
churches may be in the small towns and villages 
where there are probably too many churches to 
leave sufficient room for utilizing all the powers 
of a strong man in the ministry. Without doubt, 
the object lesson of the pettiness and competi- 
tion of some small parishes is not likely to im- 
press an ambitious young man with the scope and 
possibilities of the ministry. The dullness, lack 



86 FUTURE LEADERSHIP OF THE CHURCH 

of variety, parochial outlook, and sectarian spirit 
which characterize the ministry in many a com- 
munity do not appeal to the aggressive young 
man as offering vent for his spirit of Christian 
enterprise. 

Then, it is necessary to bear in mind the 
prevalent ambition of young men " to do things," 
as they express it. To build a bridge, to or- 
ganize a corporation, to frame a law, to dis- 
cover some new way to relieve physical suf- 
fering — all these seem to be achievements, but 
the work of the ministry does not seem to them 
in any real sense the achieving of tangible and 
important results. So, owing to these and other 
considerations, some young men receive the im- 
pression that the ministry is lacking in real spir- 
itual and moral adventure. The very existence 
of conditions making possible such a misconcep- 
tion constitutes a challenge for more of the 
strongest young men to enter this calling in or- 
der to change or master the conditions. 

The inadequate financial provision made for so 
many ministers is another reason why young men 
do not enter the ministry. While the cost of 
preparation for the ministry, the cost of living, 
and the special demands on the minister's purse 



THE OBSTACLES 87 

are much larger than formerly, his salary has 
not, as a rule, been proportionately increased. 
In many places the salary has decreased. It has 
also less purchasing power than it had a few 
years ago. The same is true in England, where 
the whole standard of comfort has increased 
while clerical incomes have decreased. Some 
Christian denominations are doing better by 
their ministers in this respect than others ; for 
example, the United Free Church of Scotland, 
the Dutch Reformed Church in South Africa, 
and the Canadian Presbyterian Church. 

At the same time, I know of no Christian 
communion or denomination which makes ade- 
quate provision for its ministers. In far too 
many cases the treatment is nothing less than 
scandalous. As some one has pointed out, 
" starvings " would be a better name than " liv- 
ings," in mentioning the provision made in 
these times for many ministers in different com- 
munions. Thomas Guthrie tells of an honest 
weaver who claimed that the Church never had 
better ministers than in the days when they wan- 
dered in sheepskins and goatskins and lived in 
the dens and caves of the earth. Guthrie replied, 
in his address as Moderator, that it would be 



SS FUTURE LEADERSHIP OF THE CHURCH 

time to treat the question seriously " when our 
people are prepared to walk Princes Street with 
Dr. Candlish and me in . . . the fashion of 
goatskins with the horns on ! " ^ Bishop Ames 
was approached by a committee in search of a 
minister. He asked them to indicate the salary. 
On their naming a small sum, he told an incident 
about meeting a drunken soldier who, during the 
war, had been decorated for bravery. He asked 
the soldier : " How can you be intoxicated after 
such heroic conduct ? " The soldier replied, 
" You can't expect all the cardinal virtues on 
thirteen dollars a month." Thousands of minis- 
ters receive stipends which amount to less than 
the wages of day laborers. The commission ap- 
pointed by President Roosevelt to settle the strike 
of the anthracite coal miners reported these aver- 
age annual earnings of certain classes of labor- 
ers in Pennsylvania : stablemen, $689.52 ; pump- 
men, $685.72; carpenters, $603.90; blacksmiths, 
$557.43.2 In contrast, there are literally thou- 
sands of ministers in the United States who re- 
ceive smaller salaries than these, even including 
house rent. The average minister and his wife 

* "Autobiography of Thomas Guthrie," II, p. 256. 
2 Bulletin of the Department of Labor, No. 46 (May, 1903), 
p. 607. 



THE OBSTACLES 89 

are uncomplaining, but their poverty involves 
many a pathetic experience, and now and then a 
real tragedy. Protestant Christians prefer mar- 
ried clergy, and yet insist in too many cases on 
their being paid as though they were celibates 
and anchorites. As a writer recently said in one 
of our religious periodicals, a minister of to-day 
in many a case must choose debt, celibacy, or a 
rich wife. 

Two or three generations ago, especially in 
frontier communities, it seemed impossible to pay 
the minister a fixed and adequate salary. It be- 
came the custom, therefore, to make up the ad- 
mittedly inadequate salary by gifts of produce 
and clothing, and by special prices granted by 
merchants. This practice still continues, and 
many parishes, no longer under the necessity, fol- 
low methods which make the pastor almost a 
mendicant and lower him in the eyes of himself 
and others. Too often, also, congregations are 
delinquent in paying salaries. Passing the ques- 
tion as to whether it is honest for a corporation 
not to keep its contracts and pay its debts, in what 
position does this leave the minister? If he 
presses for the payment of his salary he may be 
accused of being mercenary. If he allows the 



90 FUTURE LEADERSHIP OF THE CHURCH 

congregation to continue to default, he is en- 
couraging lax moral ideals and so losing in- 
fluence. The minister who is obliged to accept 
gifts from the congregation, and lower prices 
than others receive from merchants, grocers, 
butchers, and marketwomen, may come to be 
regarded by members of his congregation as an 
object of charity instead of a spiritual adviser 
and leader. 

The financial demands on the minister are 
greater in proportion to income than upon any 
other member of the community. He is expected 
to maintain a high level of respectability in his 
household, in his personal appearance, and in 
practices involving expenditure. He cannot live 
as do some of his parishioners. He and his fam- 
ily are more in the public eye than are most of 
them. He and his wife must come well dressed 
into homes ; otherwise he will not wield influence 
in sorne of the most important families. He has 
many appeals for hospitality and charity, and, as 
a rule, is the first person solicited by benevolent 
enterprises and destitute individuals. He is in a 
position to know, as no one else, cases of real and 
deserving need. He must keep fresh and up to 
date for the sake of his work and influence. This 



THE OBSTACLES 91 

requires money for books, periodicals, reviews, 
attendance upon conferences, and occasional jour- 
neys. He may be pious without these things, 
but he will not hold his position as leader, nor 
command the confidence of the thinking men of 
his congregation. As an educated man, he right- 
ly regards the education of his children as an 
absolute necessity. He must also make provision 
for old age. How can the minister on the aver- 
age salary meet as he should these demands, the 
reasonableness of which must be admitted by all 
who have a true conception of the work and 
position of the Christian minister. 

Some young men recognize these facts and con- 
siderations, but what makes this cause a much 
greater hindrance is the fact that many parents 
recognize the situation, and have been so much 
influenced by it that they discourage their sons 
from considering the Christian ministry as a life- 
work. Moreover, a much larger number of min- 
isters than is realized feel this matter so keenly 
as a result of their intimate knowledge of the 
facts that, while they may not discourage young 
men from considering the ministry as a life-work, 
they are not enthusiastically and aggressively 
seeking to direct them into this calling. 



92 FUTURE LEADERSHIP OF THE CHURCH 

There are offsetting considerations. Most can- 
didates for the ministry still come from the homes 
of the poor or of those of moderate means, and 
can more readily adjust themselves to the con- 
ditions described. There are other callings, also, 
which offer small remuneration. Men begin in 
law and medicine, as a rule, with even less than 
they do in the ministry. Teachers are in many 
cases even less adequately paid than ministers. 
Colleges have scores of applications from doc- 
tors of philosophy for positions which command 
salaries of not more than $600. It is a hard 
struggle for the great mass of the human race, 
in most departments of effort, to make financial 
ends meet. The true minister will preach the 
Gospel whether the Church supports him or not. 
Nothing will stop him save failing health. One 
cannot forget the spectacle of 500 ministers of 
the Free Church of Scotland at the time of the 
Disruption disestablishing and disendowing them- 
selves — laying on the altar of conscience a rev- 
enue of over $500,000 a year — a moral attitude 
characterized by a British Premier as " majestic.'* 
Many of them lived for years on one third of 
their former incomes, dwelling in humble cot- 
tages and subsisting on the plainest fare. They 



THE OBSTACLES 93 

gladly denied themselves ordinary comforts until 
the necessary church buildings and other facili- 
ties could be restored. They did this because a 
great principle was involved. 

It has ever been the glory of the Christian 
ministry that no cost has been counted too great 
when sacrifice was necessary. But nothing makes 
it necessary that the leaders of the Church, 
handicapped and burdened for want of needed 
means, should carry forward a work of unselfish 
service on behalf of men who are able to pro- 
vide them an adequate support. No man worth 
his salt would hesitate to become a minister be- 
cause the emoluments were small, if they could 
not be larger; but to become a minister under 
existing conditions is, in far too many cases, to 
become the servant of inconsiderateness and self- 
ishness. If really necessary, many a minister and 
his wife would be glad to lay aside pretense and 
do home missionary work on a proper basis, liv- 
ing as do settlement workers, in poor districts 
among destitute people. Men are not less heroic 
than of old; but they have knowledge and dis- 
cernment, and they see that it is not poverty, but 
carelessness and selfishness that dictate the finan- 
cial provision for many ministers to-day. They see 



94 FUTURE LEADERSHIP OF THE CHURCH 

also that the evils of sectarianism, especially the 
unreasonable and wasteful division of the Chris- 
tian forces in so many communities, account in no 
small measure for the existence of the problem, 
and fear that if they enter the ministry in the 
midst of such conditions they will but accentu- 
ate the difficulty. Nothing is clearer than that 
the different Christian communions should deal 
thoroughly with the problem of insuring ade- 
quate salaries for their ministers, and that the 
various Christian bodies unitedly should agree on 
a policy which will do away with the unneces- 
sary multiplication and unwise distribution of 
churches. 

Few young men are held back from entering 
the ministry by the talk about the dead line — 
that is, the assertion that after a certain age, say 
fifty, the minister is no longer wanted in the bet- 
ter class of appointments and parishes. As a 
rule, even ambitious young men do not look so 
far ahead. When they do, they imagine that they 
will be exceptions, because no young man ex- 
pects to fail. When they do think into the mat- 
ter at all closely, they discover that most men 
do not reach a dead line, and that in cases where 
there has been apparently as early an age limit 



THE OBSTACLES 95 

as that mentioned, there have been physical, men- 
tal, or moral causes which could have been avert- 
ed. In other words, men forced themselves to 
the dead line by lack of thorough preparation for 
the ministry or by subsequent lack of application 
and discipline. They suffered atrophy. They 
went to seed. The same causes would retire 
them, destroy their efficiency, or prevent their 
promotion in other professions. A dead line 
exists in the business world to-day more surely 
than in the ministry. One hears of many promi- 
nent business houses which do not wish to take 
on men over forty years of age. When one re- 
calls the growing influence and strength of grasp 
manifested by men Hke Dr. Alexander Whyte, of 
Edinburgh, Dr. Theodore L. Cuyler, of Brook- 
lyn, Archbishop Nicolai, of Japan, Dr. Alexander 
Maclaren, of Manchester, and the late Bishop 
Andrews of New York, he clearly recognizes 
that there is nothing inherent in the Christian 
ministry which militates against a life-long career 
of growth, power, and usefulness. 

The principal reason why young men of the 
highest quaHfications are not entering the min- 
istry in larger numbers is the lack of definite, 
earnest, prayerful efforts to influence them to 



90 FUTURE LEADERSHIP OF THE CHURCH 

devote themselves to this calling.^ While the 
pronouncedly Christian home has been in the past 
the chief factor in influencing young men to give 
themselves to the Christian ministry, the number 
of homes in which parents set before their sons 
any other ideals than material gain or worldly 
fame is diminishing. Parents are less eager 
than formerly to have their sons enter the 
ministry. This is notably true in the case of 
well-to-do families. In the old days, they not 
infrequently set apart the firstborn son or, at 
any rate, one of the boys for this calling. To- 
day many parents hope their neighbors' sons 
will become ministers, but not their own. Even 
ministers and their wives, in an increasing num- 
ber of cases, are not encouraging their sons to 
consider this calling. Far too frequently they 
positively discourage such serious consideration. 
How few ministers are putting forth continu- 
ous and intense efforts to recruit the ranks of the 
ministry. How seldom one hears a sermon ad- 
dressed either to young men, appealing to them 
to consider the claims of the ministry, or to 
parents to dedicate their sons to the ministry 

» W. W. Moore in Inaugural Address as President of Union 
Theological Seminary, Richmond, Virginia, May 9, 1905. 



THE OBSTACLES 97 

and to encourage their going into that vocation. 
How few ministers have Hsts of likely candidates 
for the ministry whom they are cultivating with 
that degree of earnestness which characterizes 
the work one regards as most important. 

Is it not strange that there is so little litera- 
ture defining and presenting the call to the 
ministry in terms of the present age and oppor- 
tunity? What other subject of such tran- 
scendent importance has been so neglected? It 
is alarming, but true, that there are still col- 
leges in America in which the idea of the min- 
istry as a life-work is not so much as suggested 
to a young man from the beginning to the end 
of his course. Many a Christian college could 
be named in which not even one professor is 
giving time regularly to personal work with 
young men regarding their life-work and their 
relation to Christ. Even the Christian Student 
Movement, which has a unique opportunity and 
a commensurate responsibility, has fallen far 
short of doing its duty. This failure is all the 
more noticeable in view of its obvious ability 
to do much to meet the need, as demonstrated 
by its remarkably successful recruiting work for 
foreign missions. 



98 FUTURE LEADERSHIP OF THE CHURCH 

If asked to state, in the order of their power 
or influence, the causes which deter able young 
men from entering the ministry, I would in- 
dicate that the last, namely, the lack of proper 
effort to lead men into the ministry, is the prin- 
cipal cause. Next to that should be placed the 
secular or utilitarian spirit of the age. Third 
in order of potency is the attraction of the so- 
called secular pursuits together with the oppor- 
tunities for service offered the Christian layman 
in such pursuits. Next in order of impor- 
tance is probably the fact, to which attention 
has been called, that the preparatory studies of 
boys are automatically diverting them from the 
ministry. After stating this much, it is diffi- 
cult to assign an order to the other factors with 
any degree of satisfaction. 

The leaders of the Christian Church, both 
clerical and lay, should face these difficulties 
squarely and courageously, with the determina- 
tion to overcome or counteract them. There is 
nothing to be gained by ignoring their existence, 
by underrating their number and gravity, or by 
failing to grapple with them. In view of the 
fact that the Church is a divine institution and 
must, therefore, have able leaders, there are, 



THE OBSTACLES 99 

beyond question, ways to overcome and counter- 
act all the difficulties which stand in the way of 
securing such leaders. The adverse factors and 
influences in the way of getting able young men 
to devote themselves to the Christian ministry 
are not without their advantages. The very 
difficulties in the situation have been and will 
continue to be our safeguard. They help to sift 
out undesirable men; they need not deter the 
ablest. It is well to keep out of the ministry 
men of weak purpose and those who do not 
recognize the rights and resources of Jesus 
Christ.^ There is much wisdom in the counsel 
given by some Church leaders to young men 
not to enter the ministry if they can help it; 
that is, not unless they have such an irresistible 
impulse or drawing in that direction that no 
difficulties can stop them. These difficulties 
exercise, discipline, and strengthen men. Ob- 
stacles have always been God's challenge to 
faith and character. In this ease-seeking age 
there is little danger of giving young men too 
much to overcome. 

* Report of Committee on Supply and Training of Clergy 
in "Conference of Bishops of the Anglican Commission" (held 
at Lambeth Palace, 1908), p. 82. 



ioo FUTURE LEADERSHIP OF THE CHURCH 

Our gravest difficulties bring about desirable 
reforms and force us to discover new and better 
paths along which to proceed. In Japan, for 
example, the development and assertion of the 
very intense national spirit among the Japanese, 
which was at first deplored by some of the Chris- 
tian leaders and which was a cause of difficulty 
to them, proved to be God's means of promot- 
ing higher Christian federation and unity, which 
in turn have greatly strengthened the position 
of Christianity in that country. Difficulties in- 
volve conflicts and make possible triumphs, and 
this appeals to strong men. There are perils, 
unsupplied needs, baffling difficulties, but this 
means that there are engrossing conflicts, in- 
exhaustible resources, and inspiring victories. 

When our difficulties and problems are suffi- 
ciently grave they drive us to God and make 
possible a larger manifestation of superhuman 
wisdom and power. It is well for us to be 
reminded again and again by the force of cir- 
cumstances that the securing of laborers is pre- 
eminently a work requiring divine cooperation. 
Were this problem not too hard for assembHes, 
conferences, and councils; for committees, com- 
missions, and deputations ; for ministers, profess- 



THE OBSTACLES lOI 

ors, and secretaries; for parents and for sons; 
the Church would not depend so largely upon 
God and, therefore, would not have so many 
God-sent men. Our very difficulties thus make 
it more likely that God's call will reach men and 
furnish a succession of Christian ministers pos- 
sessing the peculiar power which comes from 
being God-sent and God-sustained. So, even if 
our difficulties were tenfold greater, we should 
have no reason for pessimism or retreat. They 
would constitute all the louder summons to 
young men of power to give heed to the call 
of Christ, and to the leaders of the Church to 
exercise their powers and to employ their 
prayers to discover and follow His way to over- 
come and counteract the difficulties. 



THE 
FAVORING INFLUENCES 



IV 

THE FAVORING INFLUENCES 

One of the most potent indirect influences 
leading men into the ministry is the object les- 
son of ministers who by their lives, by their 
constant sense of vocation, and by the broad and 
inspiring view they take of their work, com- 
mend the ministry to young men of discernment 
and sympathy. Such men actually incarnate the 
ministry and make it intelligible and attractive 
It is this personal interpretation which enlarges 
the conception of young men as to what this 
calling is and ought to be. Wherever Maltbie 
Babcock went, he attracted young men to the 
calling which he represented. The father of Dr. 
F. B. Meyer took him every Sunday morning 
a considerable distance from his home to 
Bloomsbury Chapel that he might come under 
the influence of the powerful preaching and ex- 
ample of Dr. Brock. Dr. Meyer has said that 



■1 



io6 FUTURE LEADERSHIP OF THE CHURCH 

if his father had attended a less inspiring place 
of worship, he doubts whether he would ever 
have entered the ministry. 

The minister should magnify his calling. He 
should do this, not by boasting about it, but by 
actually believing so deeply in its greatness, its 
sacredness, and its supremacy that his belief 
becomes contagious. Ministers have been heard 
to complain before their children or before other 
young people of some of the hardships and 
disadvantages of the ministry. Or they have 
allowed, without protest, belittling comment to 
be made about Christian truth, the Christian 
Church, or Christian men. Charles Kingsley 
would permit no parochial gossip at his table. 
There is too much of it in these days, and its 
influence, especially on the young, is always un- 
favorable. Because of the public nature of his 
work, the minister's own obvious conception of 
his calling has a much greater influence than 
would otherwise be the case. One reason why 
the number of strong men oflfering themselves 
for foreign mission service is ever increasing, 
is because missionaries almost invariably give 
the impression that theirs is the most important 
and heroic of all callings and that they glory 



THE FAVORING INFLUENCES 107 

and rejoice in it. What missionary ever seems 
to be pessimistic? Professor Austin Phelps 
thus speaks of the impression made upon him 
by his father : *' He honestly believed that the 
pastoral office has no superior. ... To be a 
preacher of the Gospel was a loftier honor 
than to be a prince of the blood-royal. So per- 
vasive was this conviction in the atmosphere of 
his household, that I distinctly remember my re- 
solve, before I was four years old, that I would 
become a minister; not so much because the 
ministry was my father's guild as because he had 
taught me nothing above that to which ambition 
could aspire." ^ 

We do not have among ministers enough of 
the feeling of the glory of this work which 
Phillips Brooks emphasized in his Yale lectures 
on preaching.^ He himself always gave the im- 
pression that he felt the glory of his calling. 
Dr. Charles E. Jefferson was studying law in 
Boston, but when he heard Brooks preach he 
decided to devote himself to the Christian min- 
istry. Professor Henry S. Nash bears testimony 
that the largest number of students attended the 

» "My Portfolio," p. 4. 
•"Lectures on Preaching," p. 4. 



io8 FUTURE LEADERSHIP OF THE CHURCH 

Theological School at Cambridge when Brooks 
was at the height of his power. He was in 
close touch with the students both in the schools 
and colleges, and the streams which he started 
toward the theological seminary continued to 
flow even after his death. 

What is it about a minister which makes his 
example and spirit contagious in the sense of 
inclining young men toward the ministry as a 
life-work? First and foremost, it is his reality. 
** He and his sermons are one " they were wont 
to say of John Tauler.^ This genuineness in- 
variably impresses young men. It is vain for 
ministers to make direct and public appeals to 
young men to enter the ministry, if their daily 
life and influence do not attract to their calling. 
They are also appealed to by self-forgetting de- 
votion to meet the needs of men. A minister 
who loses himself in unselfish desire to serve 
his fellows stimulates in young men the spirit 
of service. Aggressive courage always appeals 
to strong personalities. The minister who is 
absolutely fearless in exposing sham, denoun- 
cing wrong, and fighting sin will attract the 
best young men. By his open-mindedness and 

1 R. A. Vaughan, "Hours with the Mystics," I, p. 193. 



THE FAVORING INFLUENCES 109 

breadth the minister will commend his calling to 
the more thoughtful. Dr. Alexander Whyte of 
Edinburgh said recently that one of the ablest 
ministers of Scotland stated that what led him 
to enter the ministry was the variety and range 
of the interests, both intellectual and spiritual, 
of his minister, and his sympathy with all that 
was best in his time. Genuine spirituality has 
ever exerted a deep influence on men. If the 
fire of Christ's love burns within the soul it will 
kindle like passion in others. An intensely 
spiritual ministry produces an abundant min- 
istry. One of the best tests of the strength of 
this silent, mighty, indirect influence is the ef- 
fect of the example and spirit of the minister 
on his own sons. Two of Spurgeon's sons en- 
tered the ministry. A few years ago, one half 
of the students of Mansfield College, Oxford, 
were sons of ministers. 

The maintenance of a genuinely Christian 
atmosphere and spirit in the colleges and univer- 
sities exerts an indirect influence favorable to 
the formation and fostering of the purpose to 
devote one's life to the ministry. The activi- 
ties of the Christian Student Movement and 
the positive efforts of Christian teachers and 



no FUTURE LEADERSHIP OF THE CHURCH 

professors will later be emphasized as strong 
direct influences ; here, however, attention is 
called to the indirect influence of a pronouncedly 
Christian atmosphere pervading institutions of 
higher learning. This is desirable and neces- 
sary in order to preserve and strengthen the 
purpose to enter the ministry formed by young 
men in homes and churches before going away 
to college, and also to afford conditions favor- 
able to formation of a like purpose by other 
Christian students who may not have fully 
faced the question before entering college. 
An atmosphere of indifference and unbelief is 
not conducive to a spirit of consecration to 
the sacred ministry. College life is the pe- 
riod in which many young men revise, re- 
adjust, and restate their religious position. 
During this critical time they need wise guid- 
ance and a sympathetic environment. More- 
over, with the growth in intellectual life which 
the college brings there should be correspond- 
ing growth in the rehgious life; and if this is to 
be attained, the student must be exposed to the 
agencies of religious influence, to strong Chris- 
tian personalities and to a genuinely spiritual 
atmosphere. 



THE FAVORING INFLUENCES m 

The denominational colleges of the country 
have yielded by far the largest number and 
proportion of candidates for the ministry. Dis- 
tinctively denominational and state institutions 
alone are considered in this section, reference 
being omitted to that important group of Chris- 
tian colleges and universities which are not under 
denominational control. One investigation made 
a few years ago revealed the fact that in the 
eleven leading theological seminaries of the 
United States, representing six denominations, 
ninety-six students came from state institutions 
and 1,077 from denominational colleges. An- 
other very recent investigation showed that of 
1,821 college graduates in leading theological 
seminaries, 114 came from state institutions and 
1,707 from denominational colleges. The presi- 
dent of Davidson College has indicated that two 
years ago in ten typical state universities only 
four young men out of every thousand male stu- 
dents were looking toward entering the ministry; 
whereas, in eight eastern Presbyterian col- 
leges eighty-three out of every thousand were ex- 
pecting to be ministers, and in fourteen Presby- 
terian colleges west of the Mississippi River, 196 
out of every thousand were expecting to enter 



112 FUTURE LEADERSHIP OF THE CHURCH 

this calling. Other studies showing similar pro- 
portions might be added. 

Making due allowance for the larger propor- 
tion of Christian young men in denominational 
colleges, and for the fact that more young men 
already thinking of entering the ministry go to 
denominational colleges than to state institutions, 
it remains true that the proportion of students 
in denominational colleges deciding to enter the 
ministry is greater than in state institutions. 
This has always been the case. Some of these 
denominational colleges have a wonderful record. 
During the first century of its history more than 
one third of the over 1,500 graduates of Middle- 
bury College, Vermont, became ministers. Of 
1,087 graduates in arts of Victoria University, 
Toronto, up to the present year 370, or one 
third, had entered the ministry in Canada and 
the United States. Hanover College in the Ohio 
Valley had, prior to the year 1895, sent into the 
ministry 300 of its 800 graduates. Over one 
half of the graduates of Park College, Missouri, 
have devoted themselves to the ministry. Sixty- 
three per cent of the alumni of Hope College, 
Michigan, have become ministers. And in Da- 
vidson College, North Carolina, last year (1907) 



THE FAVORING INFLUENCES 113 

seventy-five out of a total of 308 men students 
were planning to devote themselves to the min- 
isterial work of the Church. These are by no 
means isolated cases. 

The Church must not permit the colleges, from 
which she has so largely drawn her ministry, to 
drift into inferiority. The Christian aim and 
character of these colleges must be preserved. 
The arguments in favor of the Christian college 
set forth years ago with masterly force by Presi- 
dent Porter of Yale are still valid.^ The edu- 
cational standards of these colleges must be kept 
as high as those of any other institutions. Their 
professors, therefore, must rank in scholarship 
and ability with those of state universities. To 
this end denominational colleges must be much 
more generously supported. It would be better 
to have fewer denominational colleges and have 
them adequately maintained, than to have so 
many that some of them must be indifferently 
led and supported. It would be better also not 
to let the denominational colleges become so 
large as to make it impossible for the professors 
to promote through personal relations the relig- 
ious life of students, which is so essential if 

1 "Fifteen Years in the Chapel of Yale College," p. 382. 



114 FUTURE LEADERSHIP OF THE CHURCH 

these colleges are to be real schools of the 
prophets. The denominational college which is 
dominated by Christian aims, and pervaded by a 
strong Christian spirit, preserving an atmos- 
phere of true liberty, free from a narrow and 
sectarian spirit, and maintaining a staff of in- 
structors who rank with those of other institu- 
tions, has a place which is not only secure, but 
of growing importance. Such colleges will al- 
ways be a principal source of supply for the 
Christian ministry. 

The state and other undenominational colleges 
and universities, while they have not been yield- 
ing so large numbers of young men for the min- 
istry as the denominational colleges, give prom- 
ise of becoming increasingly fruitful. Generally 
speaking, these are the largest, most representa- 
tive, best equipped, and strongest universities of 
the country. They will continue to grow in 
size, power, and influence. Some of them have 
already more Christian students than have all the 
denominational colleges of their respective states. 
Some of them are pervaded by a Christian spirit 
as helpful and healthful as that which character- 
izes many of the denominational colleges. That 
their atmosphere is not generally unfavorable to 



THE FAVORING INFLUENCES 115 

the development of a religious life which is ethi- 
cal, altruistic, and aggressive is seen in the fact 
that some of the strongest Christian Associations 
are to-day to be found in these large undenomi- 
national universities. That they may increas- 
ingly be made recruiting grounds for the Chris- 
tian ministry is evident from the fact that the 
Student Volunteer Movement for Foreign Mis- 
sions has had some of its largest and ablest ac- 
cessions from the state universities. The same 
is true of the Young Men's Christian Associa- 
tion secretaryship. Owing to the size of these 
institutions, they naturally contain many Chris- 
tian young men of large ability. Those in such 
institutions who do decide to enter the ministry 
will, because of their association with young men 
of all social classes, of all callings, of all Chris- 
tian denominations, as well as with those having 
no religious affiliation, bring to their life-work a 
comprehensive touch with Hfe and a range of 
sympathy which will augment their influence. 

The leaders of the Christian denominations 
should be profoundly interested in the develop- 
ment of the religious life of the undenomina- 
tional institutions, particularly the state uni- 
versities. It is often the case, as has been im- 



Ii6 FUTURE LEADERSHIP OF THE CHURCH 

plied, that the state university has in it more 
Christian students of a given denomination than 
there are in the colleges of that denomination 
in the same state. While the Christian churches 
should maintain in full strength and at all costs 
a sufficient number of denominational colleges, 
they must not overlook their duty to their own 
young men in the state institutions. There are 
different ways in which the Church can co- 
operate in developing and fostering a strong 
Christian life in the undenominational universi- 
ties. A study of this problem, extending over 
the entire continent for a period of twenty 
years, has convinced me that the two methods 
which are by far the most practical and most 
fruitful, as well as the most economical, are 
the facilitating in every way of the work of the 
Student Christian Association Movement; and 
the strengthening of the regular churches in the 
university community. If the leading denomi- 
nations would take hold of this matter on a 
national scale and provide ways and means 
for locating and generously maintaining min- 
isters of recognized ability, in connection with 
the regular community churches, at all of these 
leading university seats, to reach and influence 



THE FAVORING INFLUENCES 117 

the Strongest students, it would prove to be one 
of the most statesmanHke and helpful policies 
ever carried out by the Christian Church. 

Enlisting young men in Christian, philan- 
thropic, and social betterment work has always 
proved to be a potent indirect means of in- 
fluencing them to devote their lives to Christian 
service. The Chaplain of Balliol College, Ox- 
ford, told me that in his opinion the most 
powerful force attracting men into the ministry 
in recent years had been the experience of work 
in the slums, gained either in school missions 
or in university settlements. While the present 
Bishop of London was head of Oxford House 
in the East End of London, many an Oxford 
man was influenced in this way to take Holy 
Orders. The sight of the deep need of slum 
life, the practical character and success of the 
work accomplished, and the high ideal of min- 
isterial life displayed by the men in it, con- 
stituted the most potent persuasion to young 
men to devote their lives to Christian service. 
Who can measure the effectiveness in recruit- 
ing the permanent Christian ministry of Can- 
ada, of the Christian work of Canadian students 
during their vacations in the West, both in con- 



Il8 FUTURE LEADERSHIP OF THE CHURCH 

firming those who had already decided to enter 
the ministry and in attracting their fellow- 
students to this calling. The activities and 
spirit of churches Hke the Spring Street Presby- 
terian Church and the Church of the Sea and 
Land in New York City, and many others in 
different American cities, have turned not a few 
college men into the ministry by giving them 
a taste of the possibilities of unselfish service 
for people in real need. 

The great volume of altruistic service which is 
being carried on by thousands of undergraduates 
in the form of Sunday schools and evangelistic 
meetings in neighboring country districts and in 
the form of settlements, boys' clubs, and special 
missions in cities and towns, has often afforded 
the conditions necessary to enable men to hear 
the call of Christ to a life of service. The grow- 
ing sympathy shown by the Church toward so- 
cial work of all kinds is sure to result in more 
young men offering themselves for the ministry. 
Let everything possible be done, therefore, to 
enlist young men of real ability in the various 
practical forms of Christian work and Christian 
social service. This will give them a vivid 
knowledge and a moving sense of the deepest 



THE FAVORING INFLUENCES IIQ 

needs of men. It will afford them present day 
evidences of the reality, power, and authority of 
Christianity, and clear up many of their gravest 
intellectual difficulties and doubts. It will im- 
press them with the fact that the Christian 
Church is indispensable in the solution of the 
social problems. This in turn will convince 
them of the need of able leadership for the 
forces of righteousness. The necessary experi- 
ence for testing their own qualifications will 
here be afforded them. In many cases there 
will be generated a passion for helpfulness which 
will result in some of them hearing and re- 
sponding to the call to give their lives to Chris- 
tian service. " Rabbi " John Duncan of Edin- 
burgh, when a man said to him that he wanted 
to get nearer Christ, replied, *' Yonder He is, 
seeking the lost. Go there and you will find 
Him." 

All through the history of the Christian 
Church genuine religious revivals or spiritual 
awakenings have influenced young men to de- 
vote their lives to the Christian ministry.^ By 

» David H. D. Wilkinson, "The Church's Ministry; Voca- 
tion and Recruiting," in "Pan-Anglican Papers" (being 
problems for consideration at the Pan-Anglican Congress in 
1908). 



I20 FUTURE LEADERSHIP OF THE CHURCH 

religious revival or spiritual awakening is meant 
not only such a work of the Spirit of God as 
promotes a more abounding spiritual life among 
men who are true disciples of Christ, but also 
and especially such a work as influences other 
men to accept and confess Jesus Christ as their 
Saviour and Lord. A state of spiritual Hfe 
which manifests itself in a constant Christward 
movement should be the normal condition of 
the life of any Christian community. This was 
true of the early Christians in those days when 
there were added to their number " day by day 
those that were being saved." 

No abnormal, unscriptural experience is meant, 
but simply that which has characterized the best 
life of Christian communities of all lands and 
of all ages since the Resurrection of Jesus 
Christ. This is far removed from those so- 
called revivals which are characterized by ex- 
citement and outbreaks of fanaticism traceable 
to indiscreet leaders, unwise methods, and hu- 
man energy. The real spiritual awakening has 
its justification in the practice and teachings of 
Christ and the early Christian Church. Re- 
vivals in the sense defined, are Scriptural, 
rational, essential, and practicable. Such awak- 



THE FAVORING INFLUENCES 121 

enings have been an outstanding fact in all the 
history of the Christian religion. An important 
indirect result has always been to influence 
young men to dedicate their lives to the Chris- 
tian ministry and other forms of Christian work. 
In the pathway of the wonderful revivals ac- 
companying Whitefield's preaching there was an 
unbroken line of men entering the ministry. 
Many of these were very strong characters. At 
one time, in the vicinity of Boston, there were as 
many as twenty ministers who owned him as 
their spiritual father. Similar results followed 
the revivals associated with Finney's name. Even 
the reading of his revival lectures influenced 
many to become ministers. After one of his 
meetings in Great Britain, three different minis- 
ters came forward to introduce themselves to 
him, stating that they had thus been led to enter 
the ministry. At a conference on the ministry, 
in Glasgow, Professor George Adam Smith called 
attention to the fact that the first great revival 
under the leadership of Moody in the early sev- 
enties brought many strong men into the min- 
istry. It was this mighty spiritual movement 
which made Henry Drummond an evangelist and 
turned thousands of laymen into the service of 



122 FUTURE LEADERSHIP OF THE CHURCH 

Christ. The Glengarry Revival in the early six- 
ties, celebrated in Ralph Connor's " The Man 
from Glengarry," gave Canada a large number 
of ministers. 

College revivals have been particularly fruit- 
ful in recruiting the ranks of the ministry. In 
the period 1813 to 1837, inclusive, there were at 
Yale thirteen marked revivals, each of which 
turned promising young men into the ministry.^ 
It has been estimated that the subsequent work 
of the students influenced in one of these awak- 
enings under the preaching of President Timothy 
Dwight resulted in the professed conversion of 
over 50,000 people. A revival at Yale in the 
early thirties carried Horace Bushnell out of 
his doubts and into the ministry. It is an inter- 
esting fact that the influence of the revival at 
Williams College in 1806 afforded the conditions 
which made possible the Haystack Prayer Meet- 
ing and the modern North American missionary 
movement.^ Of thirteen students converted at 
that time, nine entered the ministry or became 
missionaries, among their number being Gordon 
Hall. Finney conducted evangelistic meetings in 

» W. S. Tyler, "Prayer for Colleges," p. 132. 
2T. C. Richards, "Samuel J. Mills," p. 29. 



THE FAVORING INFLUENCES 1 23 

one institution in Rochester in connection with 
which a large number of young men were con- 
verted, of whom over forty later became min- 
isters. Among the most notable student revi- 
vals in America was the one in Princeton in 
1876. About one hundred undergraduates 
were led into the Christian life at that time, 
and of their number several became ministers. 
This awakening had much to do with the cre- 
ation of the Christian Student Movement of 
North America which in turn has influenced 
thousands of young men to become ministers and 
missionaries. Multitudes of other illustrations 
could be given. It is important to add that in the 
history of American colleges there has never 
been a period characterized by mightier spiritual 
awakenings, both in Christian and state institu- 
tions, than the past decade. The same may be 
said of certain other countries both in the Occi- 
dent and in the Orient. These movements of the 
Divine Spirit have been preparing the way for a 
larger offering of lives to the work of Christ in 
the world. 

Two classes of young men are influenced by 
revivals to enter the ministry. Some of the 
converts are thus influenced. Professor Graham 



124 FUTURE LEADERSHIP OF THE CHURCH 

Taylor made an investigation which showed that 
eighty-five of the 354 men who entered the Chi- 
cago Theological Seminary in the decade ending 
in 1904 formed their purpose to become minis- 
ters at the time of their conversion. Other stu- 
dents are led to become ministers as a result 
of participating in the work of the revival or by 
observing its effects. 

What is the philosophy underlying the fact 
that genuine revivals of religion influence men 
to devote their lives to the ministry as well 
as to other forms of Christian service? A re- 
vival or spiritual awakening, from the nature 
of the case, arrests the attention and fixes it 
on the greatest concerns of religion. It pro- 
motes that seriousness of mind which is essen- 
tial to the apprehension of spiritual truth and 
to the preparation of the heart to respond to 
spiritual truth. It makes very vivid and com- 
manding the great facts of the Christian faith, 
such as the awful power and consequences of 
sin, the love of God, the possibilities of the hu- 
man soul, the power of Christ, and the responsi- 
bility of men. The actual, superhuman working 
of Christ, doing for men what they could not do 
for themselves in converting, emancipating, trans- 



THE FAVORING INFLUENCES 125 

forming, and energizing their lives, affords fresh, 
present-day evidences of Christianity and makes 
the Christian faith a great reality. All doubt that 
the presence of God in human life may become 
a fact of experience is swept aside. One begins 
to have a realizing sense that it is vitally and 
urgently necessary that men dedicate themselves 
to Christ as their personal Saviour. Moreover, 
the lives of all who enter sympathetically into the 
experiences of the revival are purified. Their 
sense of moral responsibility is quickened and 
deepened. They forget themselves and are 
drawn out in unselfish thought and intense effort 
to help others in the deepest things of life, and 
thus come to know as a personal experience the 
joy of service in intimate association with 
Christ. Religion comes to be regarded as the 
most momentous matter. Men learn at such 
times to see life in true perspective. They are 
in a position to estimate values rightly. Prin- 
cipal Rainy, of Edinburgh, not long before his 
death told me that the spiritual quickening he 
received at the time of the great Disruption 
turned him from his plan of being a physician 
and made him a minister. He added : " It woke 
me up. Religion became great in my eyes." It 



126 FUTURE LEADERSHIP OF THE CHURCH 

is not strange, when viewed psychologically as 
well as in the light of actual experience of men, 
that a process like this results in influencing men 
of power and unselfish ambition to yield them- 
selves to the ministry of Jesus Christ. Every- 
thing which can be done to promote genuine spir- 
itual awakenings in our colleges and in all our 
communities will bear indirectly yet very power- 
fully on the solution of the problem of securing 
qualified leaders for the Christian forces. 

The most efficient human factor in influencing 
young men to enter the ministry has been and in 
some countries still is the Christian home. At a 
recent conference of over 300 students from 
various theological seminaries, more than one 
half assigned favorable home influences as the 
cause which led them to devote themselves to 
the ministry. In many a conference in North 
America, Europe, and other parts of the world, 
investigation revealed that as large or an even 
larger proportion had been primarily influenced 
by the same cause. A very large majority of 
young men entering the ministry arrive at their 
decision before the age of eighteen. Herbert 
Kelly, Director of the Society of the Sacred 
Mission, has pointed out that every year after 



THE FAVORING INFLUENCES 127 

boyhood it becomes more difficult to impress 
upon young men the claims of this calling.^ 
The presumption, therefore, is that the home 
influence is the predominating factor in their 
decision. Unconsciously, in most cases, the child 
fulfils the desire of the parent's heart. 

In the preparation of this book the biogra- 
phies of 128 ministers, including those who 
would be regarded as the one hundred lead- 
ing ministers of the past 500 years, were ex- 
amined. This study showed that all but nine 
of the 128 came from homes which were pro- 
nouncedly favorable to the decision to devote 
one's life to the Christian ministry. Of 400 of 
the most successful and influential ministers of 
the United States and Canada answering the 
inquiry as to the causes leading them into the 
ministry, over four fifths assigned the influence 
of Christian parents and of Christian home life 
as the chief factor determining their decision. 
Bishop McQuaid, of Rochester, calls attention 
to the fact that the Roman Catholic priesthood is 
recruited from pious Christian homes.^ The 

1 See chapter "On the Age of Recruiting," in "England and 
the Church," p. 182. 

2 John Talbot Smith, "The Training of a Priest." See 
introductory chapter " Our American Seminaries," p. xxv. 



128 FUTURE LEADERSHIP OF THE CHURCH 

place of all places, therefore, to bring to bear 
influence is the home. Let there be thorough 
subsoiHng in the homes and all will be well. 
Young men will successfully pass through most 
of the difficulties which present themselves in 
the universities and elsewhere if they have come 
from earnest Christian homes where the atmos- 
phere is favorable to their devoting themselves 
to such a Christlike work. 

Most people can think of examples showing 
the large contribution made to the ministry by 
Christian homes. William Wilberforce, who did 
so much for the emancipation of the slaves, gave 
three of his sons to Holy Orders, one of whom 
became a bishop. Four sons went out from 
the home of Bishop Westcott into the service 
of Christ in India. The eight sons of Dr. Scud- 
der became missionaries. Of five sons of the 
Rev. Dr. J. Henry Smith, of Greensboro, North 
Carolina, three are prominent ministers, one is 
the president of a leading Southern Presbyte- 
rian college and preaches very frequently, and 
the other is a ruling elder of the Presbyterian 
Church and a university professor, himself also 
a frequent lecturer on Bible themes. The in- 
fluence of their home was the most powerful 



THE FAVORING INFLUENCES 129 

factor in their choice of a Hfe-work. During 
the boyhood of these sons their father always 
had a colored boy as a servant. The first one 
of these servants, seeing the children at their 
books every night, became interested and eager 
to obtain an education. Dr. Smith arranged 
for him to go to Lincoln University where he 
graduated, and then became a minister among 
his own people. The colored boy who suc- 
ceeded him followed precisely the same course 
and became an earnest preacher to his race. 
The history of the third colored boy was ex- 
actly the same. All three of these colored min- 
isters have been faithful and are a credit to 
their calling. So, from this minister's home 
went forth six ministers of the Gospel, three 
white and three colored. The family of Dr. 
Andrew Murray of South Africa is also a re- 
markable illustration. Of the eleven children 
who grew up, five of the six sons became min- 
isters and four of the five daughters became 
ministers' wives. The next generation already 
has a still more striking record in that ten 
grandsons have become ministers and thirteen 
have become missionaries. All but two of these 
twenty-three grandsons have had the full the- 



130 FUTURE LEADERSHIP OF THE CHURCH 

ological training. The secret of this unusual 
contribution to the Christian ministry is the 
Christian home. 

In no other country is the home such a potent 
factor for supplying the ministry as in Scotland. 
Christian leaders might well study Scotch home 
life. What are some of the things which have 
characterized many of these homes that have 
furnished so many able men for the ministry? 
In them religion was the chief concern. The 
parents were genuinely religious. The Hfe was 
simple. The Sabbath was observed strictly — 
— some would say too strictly, but by their 
fruits ye shall know them. Family worship was 
given a regular and very prominent place both 
morning and evening. Much attention was 
paid to Bible instruction and memorizing. The 
catechism was made a part of the mental fur- 
nishing of each child. While there may not 
have been many books in those homes, there 
were some which were read and pondered and 
which have exerted a tremendous influence on 
the character and beliefs of the people; for ex- 
ample, Boston's "Fourfold State,'.' Baxter's 
" The Saint's Everlasting Rest," Fisher's " The 
Marrow of Modern Divinity," Bunyan's " Pil- 



THE FAVORING INFLUENCES 131 

grim's Progress," Doddridge's " The Rise and 
Progress of Religion in the Soul," Foxe's 
''Book of Martyrs," and Rutherford's ''Trial 
and Triumph of Faith." Professor Orr stated 
in one of our conferences that he had found the 
shepherds in the Border Districts veritable 
pundits in Biblical and theological knowledge. 
Those homes all entertained the highest con- 
ception or ideal of the ministry. No belittling 
criticism of ministers was allowed. The tradi- 
tion was and is strong that at least one son 
should enter the ministry. This was the deepest 
wish of the mother's heart. We all remember 
the moving story, " His Mother's Sermon," in 
" Beside the Bonnie Briar Bush." Many a 
mother consecrated her son to the ministry from 
the time of his birth. The mother or father 
may not in many a case have expressed their 
wish to the son, but he knew that the work of 
the Church was warm in their hearts. The 
Christian homes of other lands have much to 
learn and imitate from those of Scotland. It 
is to be feared that in the intense, hurried, 
feverish North American life, with the power- 
ful materialistic influences to which we are ex- 
posed, home life is being starved and dwarfed 



132 FUTURE LEADERSHIP OF THE CHURCH 

spiritually and that it falls far short of this 
ideal. 

Ministers themselves can do most to bring 
about the necessary transformation of the home 
life of the country. Any other treatment of this 
problem of ministerial supply is dealing with 
the fringes of the subject. Influence must be 
brought to bear upon Christian parents. Let 
there be systematic, untiring pulpit and house- 
to-house work to raise the standard of home 
religion by promoting those habits and prac- 
tices which facilitate the consideration of re- 
ligious matters and which develop real Christian 
spirit. Above all there should be pressed upon 
Christian parents the rights of Jesus Christ and 
the claims of His Kingdom with reference to 
their children. That which will lend peculiar 
intensity and contagious force to all that the 
minister may say in public and in private on 
the subject of the Christian ministry will be the 
fact that he consecrates his own children to the 
work of Christ as He may call. 

The sum and substance of all that has been 
said about the Christian home as a factor in 
influencing young men to enter the ministry is 
that certain conditions are essential in order to 



THE FAVORING INFLUENCES 133 

enable young men to hear the call of God, and 
that these conditions, from the nature of the 
case, can best be furnished in that divine insti- 
tution — ^the home. Balfour has pointed out that 
there is such a thing as an atmosphere of be- 
lief.^ It is equally true that there is an atmos- 
phere in which young men may best arrive at 
life decisions, and that atmosphere can best be 
generated in genuinely Christian homes. 

Incomparably the most potent indirect influ- 
ence in securing the right young men for the 
Christian ministry is prayer. The sources of 
the Christian ministry are in the springs high 
up in the mountains. The streams that turn the 
machinery of the world rise in solitary places. 
Many a page has been covered in this outline 
treatment of the problem of securing an able 
leadership for the churches. Jesus Christ went 
to the heart of the subject in a very few words. 
He was familiar with our problem. He was 
profoundly impressed with the greatness of the 
task before Christians and with the paucity of 
workers. His solution of the problem of mul- 
tiplying the number of workers was strikingly 
original and absolutely unique. He summoned 
1 "The Foundations of Belief," p. 218. 



134 FUTURE LEADERSHIP OF THE CHURCH 

US to prayer. " Pray ye therefore the Lord of 
the harvest, that he send forth laborers into His 
harvest." ^ He forever silenced skepticism as to 
the importance and efficacy of this method by 
His own example as a man of prayer. He 
clearly taught that there is a necessary connec- 
tion between our prayers and the providing of 
the supply of workers of God's own appoint- 
ment. Here is a deep mystery, but the history 
of Christianity shows beyond question that it is 
also a deep reality. Men may have done all the 
other things which have been emphasized in our 
discussion, but if they have omitted to pray, the 
laborers have not been bestowed. It never 
ceases to move one with wonder and awe that 
the omnipotent and omniscient God should have 
conditioned a matter so vital as the leadership 
of the forces of Christ's Kingdom upon His fol- 
lowers' faithfulness or faithlessness in prayer. 

We cannot impute the deficiency of workers 
to neglect on the part of Christ. God would 
not fail to answer the prayer dictated by Him- 
self. The failure lies at our own doors. We 
have failed to obey Christ's clear command and 
to follow His convincing example as the great 

» Matthew ix, 38. 



THE FAVORING INFLUENCES 13 S 

Intercessor. Why have we thus failed? Let 
us face the matter conscientiously and see. We 
have been unbelieving. Prayer indicates that 
we actually believe that Christ meant what He 
said when He summoned us to pray for la- 
borers. We have been egotistical. Prayer on 
our part would have shown that we distrusted 
our unaided plans, devices, and energies. We 
have been selfish. As Professor George Adam 
Smith pointed out in an address at Yale, prayer 
for others is the hardest kind of work.^ It calls 
for detachment from self and that is always hard. 
It calls for intensity. It calls for the expendi- 
ture of time and that is never easy. We have 
been busy. But the overwhelming pressure 
upon His time was one of the principal reasons 
why Christ prayed. We have been ignorant. It 
seems inconceivable that we would have neg- 
lected to employ this mighty agency had we 
been fully informed and convinced of the essen- 
tial part which it sustains to the securing of the 
laborers of God's choice. We have been pur- 
poseless. Some of us may have been con- 
vinced that prayer is essential for the accom- 

* "Sunday Evening Talks to Yale Undergraduates" (Henry 
B. Wright, Editor), p. 47. 



136 FUTURE LEADERSHIP OF THE CHURCH 

plishment of our great end, but for one reason 
or another we have neglected to form an ef- 
fective purpose, that is, a purpose issuing in 
actual performance. We have been cold and 
formal. Experience shows that men are not 
led by arguments and burning appeals to give 
themselves to prayer. Not until they come to 
feel a heart interest in the object and are deeply 
moved with a sense of the need of accomplish- 
ing it do they give themselves with reality and 
fervency to prayer on its behalf. 

Sermons should be preached on prayer for 
laborers. The best books and pamphlets on the 
achieving power of prayer should be widely cir- 
culated and read. Meetings for united prayer 
should be multiplied. Appeals for prayer for 
students, for ministers, and for parents should 
be issued and honored. The churches should be 
led to observe the Day of Prayer for Students, 
with that faithfulness which characterized their 
observance of this day two generations ago. 
The committee appointed recently by the Arch- 
bishop of Canterbury to consider the question of 
the supply and training of candidates for the 
sacred ministry, after discussing various ways 
and means which should be employed to meet 



THE FAVORING INFLUENCES 137 

the great need, properly place chief emphasis on 
intercession : " The question of the due supply 
of the Church's ministers is one which the Lord 
has revealed to us as being bound up with ear- 
nest prayer and intercession. No recommenda- 
tions of a Committee and no efforts of the 
Church will avail unless there go with them the 
Church's sustained and earnest supplication. We 
would, therefore, as a final recommendation, 
press for the more constant and widespread use 
of the special prayer for the supply of Candi- 
dates, . . . and for the more devout observance 
of Ember-tides for keeping alive in the hearts 
of the Church people a due sense of concern 
and obligation in this matter." ^ 

Above all, those who keenly realize the impor- 
tance of this method and agency should give 
themselves to prayer. Is not this incomparably 
the most important work? Beyond question, 
prayer is the mightiest force which any Chris- 
tian can wield in this world. It is his richest 
talent. Not without displeasing our Lord and 
Master can we bury it or leave it unused. It 
is a talent possessed by all. Christians may and 

1 " The Supply and Training of Candidates for Holy 
Orders " (June, 1908), p. 31. 



138 FUTURE LEADERSHIP OF THE CHURCH 

do differ with reference to other abiHties, but in 
the most vital matter they stand on a level. 

Only God is competent to select, to clothe, 
to commission, and to impel the workers for 
His Kingdom. From first to last this recruit- 
ing work is a superhuman undertaking. The 
ground of our hope and confidence in the se- 
curing of an adequate supply of competent 
young men for the ministry of Jesus Christ rests 
chiefly, not upon the favoring indirect influences 
which have already been considered, and not 
upon the various agencies to be emphasized in 
connection with the direct propaganda, but upon 
that which will give direction and efficiency to 
them all, that which brings to bear the irresist- 
ible forces of the Spirit of the Living God. 



THE PROPAGANDA 



THE PROPAGANDA 

The minister, if he be of a type attractive to 
strong men, can do more than anyone else to 
recruit men for the ministry. At one time, cer- 
tainly. Christian parents would have been ex- 
cepted; but in view of the fact that to-day so 
many Christian parents are not eager to have 
their sons enter the ministry, it is clear that 
the minister holds the key to the situation, be- 
cause he is in a position to do most to change 
the attitude of parents on this subject. This 
is the most highly multiplying work of the min- 
ister. One does not underrate the prophetic, 
the pastoral, the teaching, and the organizing 
functions of the ministry; but none of these 
enables him so to multiply himself as does 
the recruiting function. Agassiz, when asked 
what he regarded as his greatest work, re- 
plied : " Training two men." Samuel Morley 
141 



142 FUTURE LEADERSHIP OF THE CHURCH 

emphasized aptly the same idea: " He who does 
the work, is not so productively employed as 
he who multiplies the doers." ^ 

The minister is under obligation to exercise 
this recruiting function. He should be working 
not only for the present Church, but also for 
the Church which is to be. He is as much un- 
der obligation to raise up a ministry for the next 
generation as he is to raise up a church mem- 
bership for the next generation. There is 
something wrong if in a long pastorate a min- 
ister does not have, as a result of his life and 
work, young men consecrating themselves to 
the Christian ministry; he may well give him- 
self to self-examination and to making neces- 
sary changes in his aims, attitude, and practice. 
If ministers are in dead earnest on this point 
there is no doubt that they will influence able 
young men to dedicate themselves to this 
greatest of callings. Professor Henry Calder- 
wood was right when, in speaking at the Sec- 
ond General Council of the Presbyterian Alli- 
ance, held in Philadelphia in 1880, he insisted 
that " There is one key to the supply of stu- 

» Quoted by James Wells, "The Life of James Hood 
Wilson," p. 87. 



THE PROPAGANDA 143 

dents to the ministry, and that is the ministry 
itself." 1 

What means shall the minister employ in his 
efforts to secure men for this calling? He 
should preach sermons and make public appeals 
to the young men and boys of his congregation 
on the claims of the ministry. Many ministers 
have neglected to do this. At a recent con- 
ference where there were over three hundred 
theological students, representing about fifty of 
the theological seminaries of the United States 
and Canada, when the delegates were asked to 
indicate whether they had ever heard a sermon 
on the subject of the claims of the ministry, 
over one half of the number stated that they 
had never heard such a sermon. Even if a min- 
ister does not feel like making a direct appeal 
to young men to become ministers, he should 
at least place before them the opportunities and 
claims of the ministry and urge them to strive 
to understand and heed what God's will in the 
matter is for them personally. He should also 
improve opportunities to speak on the ministry 
in colleges and schools. Some ministers have 

» "Report of Proceedings of the Second General Council of 
the Presbyterian Alliance," p. 666. 



144 FUTURE LEADERSHIP OF THE CHURCH 

recognized and accepted such opportunities and 
have accomplished far-reaching results. For 
example, Dr. Lyman Abbott and Dr. Henry 
van Dyke have rendered very effective service. 
Other ministers whose words would come with 
special power to students, although they accept 
invitations to go away to preach on other sub- 
jects and before other audiences, decline invita- 
tions of this kind. When one recalls the great 
influence exerted by the four sermons preached 
at Cambridge University a half a century ago 
by Bishop Selwyn on " The Work of Christ in 
the World," one recognizes the great possibili- 
ties of setting before college men the unique 
claims of this calling.^ 

Of equal importance is it that ministers 
preach sermons adapted to influence parents to 
dedicate their children to lives of Christian 
service, to lead them to pray that their children 
may be set apart by God to such service, and 
to help them to make the spiritual conditions 
in their homes favorable to the formation and 
fostering of this kind of a life purpose. In times 
of spiritual awakening or of great responsive- 

» G. H. Curteis, " Bishop Selwyn of New Zealand, and of 
Lichfield," pp. 146-153. 



THE PROPAGANDA 145 

ness in his church, the minister should call to- 
gether a group of the most promising young 
men of his congregation and seriously charge 
them to give conscientious consideration to the 
need, opportunities, and claims of the Christian 
ministry. This was the practice of Bushnell. 
There come times in the life of a church when 
more can be done in a few hours than can be 
done under ordinary conditions in many months. 
Wise is the minister who learns to discern such 
times and to press the advantage which they 
present. 

The minister should constantly employ with 
strong young men and boys within the range 
of his influence the method of personal work 
with reference to their life plans. At the con- 
ference of theological students to which refer- 
ence has been made, among the more than three 
hundred delegates from the theological sem- 
inaries of North America it was discovered that 
one hundred and fifty had been influenced to 
enter the Christian ministry chiefly by the per- 
sonal work of ministers. The minister should 
constantly study the young men and boys of 
his congregation and community and make at 
least mental note of those who seem to him to 



146 FUTURE LEADERSHIP OF THE CHURCH 

be likely candidates for such a work as that of 
the ministry, and should seek to expose them 
to influences calculated to make plain to them 
and to others whether this is God's work for 
them. He should give time to them personally. 
At a recent meeting of ministers a pastor of a 
suburban church of Chicago mentioned that he 
had a list of nine such men of his congregation 
whom he was following up. Some of them are 
away at college. He keeps in touch by letters 
and when they return home for their vacations 
he renews his personal intercourse with them. 

It would be well for the minister to set 
apart a regular time each week for interviews 
with young men. Dr. John Clifford, minister 
at Westbourne Park Church in London, has 
already had twenty-six young men enter the 
ministry or foreign missionary service. The 
secret of his success he considers to be the 
fact that he has given the time from seven to 
ten o'clock each Friday evening to interviews 
with young men. This has brought him into 
touch with all classes and, as occasion has of- 
fered, he has suggested the ministry as a pos- 
sible calling to those who have impressed him 
as having the fundamental qualifications. 



THE PROPAGANDA 147 

Ministers located in college towns should im- 
prove the unique opportunity of cultivating the 
friendship of strong Christian students away 
from home. Some of the ministers of Edin- 
burgh and Glasgow have exerted a wide in- 
fluence in this respect in their relations to young 
men from the colonies studying in the Scottish 
universities. Personal work to influence boys 
and young men to go to college results in 
directing many of them into Christian service. 
It is well to remember that the minister him- 
self should be in the attitude of prayer that 
he may be divinely guided in discerning provi- 
dential indications with reference to the fit- 
ness of young men for the ministry, and also 
and more especially that God may make plain 
to the young men themselves His will in the 
matter. 

The minister should lay a burden of respon- 
sibility on teachers of young men's and boys' 
Bible classes in the Sunday school and in the 
men's organizations of his church to use their 
influence in directing the serious attention of 
their members to the ministerial calling. He 
should also see that the young people's society 
or young men's guild or brotherhood of his 



148 FUTURE LEADERSHIP OF THE CHURCH 

church includes in its policy the presentation of 
the claims of the ministry. 

The possibilities of this recruiting work of 
the minister are boundless. Even in what some 
regard as unfavorable fields there are large un- 
developed possibilities. Dr. W. S. Rainsford, 
during the years he was at St. George's in New 
York, influenced over a score of young men to 
devote themselves to the ministry. Dr. James 
Hood Wilson, while a pastor in Edinburgh, in- 
fluenced over thirty young men to become for- 
eign missionaries, not to mention those who en- 
tered Christian work on the home field. The two 
churches which he served were nurseries of min- 
isters and missionaries. These two illustrations 
refute the assertion which one often hears, that 
city churches, especially those in the mission dis- 
tricts, are not hopeful recruiting grounds for 
the ranks of the ministry. 

The country church parishes have also, when 
cultivated, always yielded most gratifying re- 
sults. In a recent conference, Bishop Ander- 
son, of the Methodist Episcopal Church, told 
of one country pastor who in his lifetime had 
led twenty-seven young men into the ministry. 
Professor Robert K. Massie, of the theological 



THE PROPAGANDA 149 

seminary near Alexandria, Virginia, told of an- 
other minister in a small town who, to his 
knowledge, had sent seventeen men into the 
ministry. Professor E. A. Mackenzie, of the 
Presbyterian Theological College in Montreal, 
writes about a picture he had seen of a coun- 
try church in Oxford County, Ontario, around 
the border of which were thirty small photo- 
graphs of men who had gone out of that coun- 
try parish into the Christian ministry. The min- 
ister who served that church all his life was in 
the habit of constantly looking up young men 
of parts, and directing their attention to the min- 
istry. He was literally a recruiting officer of the 
Church. None of these examples are excep- 
tional cases so far as opportunity is concerned. 
The point is that these men saw their oppor- 
tunity and seized it. " Enlarger of the Em- 
pire " (Mehrer des Retches) is a title of high- 
est honor, which the Germans give to only 
a very few of their greatest warriors and 
statesmen. The Christian minister should as- 
pire to no higher distinction than that of 
winning by a long life of faithful recruiting 
work the right to the title of Enlarger of the 
Kingdom. 



ISO FUTURE LEADERSHIP OF THE CHURCH 

Efforts made by schoolmasters, college profess- 
ors, and theological seminary professors should 
be assigned as another potent direct cause con- 
straining young men to enter the ministry. Much 
more should be done to impress boys during their 
school days with the importance of the ministry 
as a life-work. The period of adolescence, say 
fourteen to eighteen inclusive, is the vision- form- 
ing period. It is the most favorable time and, 
therefore, the most important time for making 
the deepest impressions of life. Secular influ- 
ences are not deferring their appeal until this 
period is passed. They do not lose the advantage 
suggested by the psychological fact just stated. 
What subject can be more fittingly brought be- 
fore boys at this stage, than the importance of 
the sense of a vocation in life, and above all of 
the special vocation of working for Christ in the 
ministry at home or abroad ? It may not be wise 
to urge them to decide the question of their 
career so early, but it most certainly is wise to 
bring before them thus early the most unselfish 
forms of work in as strong, vivid, and attractive 
manner as possible. Let the Christian ministry be 
made as appealing to boys as the callings of ex- 
plorers, generals, and captains of industry. The 



THE PROPAGANDA 151 

late Bishop Creighton of London, is right in his 
contention : " I am perfectly certain that the vo- 
cation of Holy Orders has just as great attrac- 
tion for boys as any other, but they are allowed 
to grow up without any adequate sense that they 
are bound to serve the common welfare at all." ^ 
As a matter of fact, this period of boyhood is 
the one in which by far the greater number of 
ministers have decided the question of their life- 
work. Various investigations made by different 
persons and societies in different countries clear- 
ly establish this as a fact. The Roman Catholic 
Church, more than other Christian bodies, appre- 
ciates the great importance of what this involves.^ 
One of their bishops said to me that they make 
it their practice to secure their priests from 
among the ranks of boys. In fact this is a mat- 
ter of settled policy dating from the Council of 
Trent. 

The wise and tactful schoolmaster can do more 
to influence schoolboys than possibly anyone else. 
In nearly every school there is at least one master 
qualified by life and influence with the boys to 

» The Churchman, Vol, LXXXII, p. 141. 
2 J. Delbrel, S.J., "Pour repeupler Nos Seminaires," pp. 
17, 24, 168. 



152 FUTURE LEADERSHIP OF THE CHURCH 

render a great service in this direction. The 
country schoolmasters in Scotland, more than in 
other lands, have been on the lookout for the 
*' lad o' pairts " whom they have often helped to 
send to the university and on into the ministry. 
The Rev. J. Bell Henderson stated in a confer- 
ence in Glasgow that from among the boys sent 
up to the university by the schoolmaster of one 
quiet parish came three moderators of the Church 
of Scotland. 

The college professors also have a unique op- 
portunity to help direct students into the work of 
the ministry. Although many young men have 
virtually decided the question of their life-work 
before going to college, there are still large num- 
bers who have not done so. Moreover, many of 
the young men who, before they entered college, 
may have decided to enter the ministry are likely 
to abandon their purpose unless it is properly 
nurtured and strengthened during student days. 
The college president or professor has unsur- 
passed influence with young men who are face to 
face with questions pertaining to their life-work, 
because in the position of teacher he is regarded 
as peculiarly impartial; and, from the nature of 
the case, this is true. One need only let his mind 



THE PROPAGANDA 153 

travel back to his own college days to realize 
how great is the influence wielded by one's favor- 
ite professor at that impressionable and respon- 
sive period. I well remember how Professor 
Moses Coit Tyler, the distinguished professor of 
American history, one morning called me into 
his study after the lecture hour. I supposed he 
wished to see me in connection with the piece of 
work I was doing in the historical seminar, but 
to my surprise he presented me with a copy of 
The Book of Common Prayer and asked me 
the one question as to whether I had ever seri- 
ously considered the possibility of devoting my 
life to Christian service. That is all that he 
did and said, but it was one of the most result- 
ful interviews of my life. 

Influence was formerly exerted in this direc- 
tion by college presidents and professors much 
more largely than at present. It is said that 
President Stearns, of Amherst, interviewed every 
freshman about his purpose in life, and sought 
to be helpful to him at that critical stage. The 
fact that less is done now than formerly is ex- 
plained partly by the great growth in the num- 
ber of students in our colleges and universities, 
but more fully by the increase in the execu- 



154 FUTURE LEADERSHIP OF THE CHURCH 

tive and administrative responsibilities of col- 
lege presidents and by the higher specialization 
of the work of college professors. There is 
ground for the fear that the old-fashioned pro- 
fessor, in the good sense of the term, is disap- 
pearing. Too many modern professors carry 
to an extreme the university idea and give one 
the impression that they are more concerned 
with developing subjects than developing men. 
In every college, as Dr. George A. Gordon, of 
Boston, emphasized in a conference of Church 
leaders on the subject of securing candidates 
for the ministry, there should be at least one 
great teacher who would inspire students to be- 
come ministers. Although the tendency is in 
the other direction, it is gratifying to recall 
splendid exceptions here and there among col- 
lege presidents and professors. One of the 
finest examples was the late President Harper 
of the University of Chicago. Surely no man 
was more heavily burdened with administrative 
and financial responsibility or more efficient in 
the work of his specialty in study; and yet he 
always found time, or better, always made time 
for what he told me he regarded as his most 
important work — that of making himself acces- 



THE PROPAGANDA 155 

sible to young men to discuss with them ques- 
tions pertaining to faith, conduct, and life-work. 
While he was a professor at Yale and later at 
Chicago, and also while attending student con- 
ferences, he influenced many a young man to 
enter the ministry or the profession of Bible 
teaching. 

Some of the best results of the influence of 
teachers in schools and colleges are seen on the 
difficult mission fields. The three largest and 
strongest bands of Japanese students who en- 
tered the ministry — the Kumamoto Band, the 
Sapporo Band, and the Yokohama Band — were 
influenced by the earnest Christian teachers. 
Captain L. L. Janes, President W. S. Clark, and 
Dr. S. R. Brown, who gave their time gener- 
ously to this end. They deemed nothing else 
so important. Two of these bands, it is inter- 
esting to note, were started in government or 
non-Christian schools. At Peking University, 
in 1908 there were 186 Chinese students who 
had signed a covenant to devote their lives to 
Christian work, more especially the Christian 
ministry. One of the chief causes, if not the 
chief one, was the fact that some of the Chris- 
tian teachers set apart much time right through 



156 FUTURE LEADERSHIP OF THE CHURCH 

the year for interviews with the students about 
their Hfe-work. Not a Httle of this time was 
spent in actual prayer with individual students 
regarding the special difficulties in their path. 

Professors in theological seminaries obviously 
have a responsibility not only to train ministers, 
but also to help in enlisting able young men 
for the ministry. They are in a position to 
know, better than most people, the need for men 
in the ministry, the kind of men wanted, and 
the requirements for preparation. It is a matter 
to be deplored that theological professors do 
not move about among Christian homes and 
churches as much as they did in former times 
with a special view to discovering men who 
apparently might become able ministers, and 
urging them to consider carefully and prayer- 
fully God's will for their life-work. One is not 
unmindful of the criticisms which at times are 
made with reference to such a course, but the 
more one reflects upon them, the more super- 
ficial they are seen to be. The fear that he may 
be accused of recruiting students for a seminary 
rather than ministers for the Church, should not 
deter the sincere professor from doing all in his 
power to bring vividly before strong young men 



THE PROPAGANDA 157 

and their parents the critical need of supplying 
an able leadership for the forces of the Church. 
Theological professors who are especially 
qualified to influence college students should de- 
vote more time to visiting colleges and schools 
with reference to interesting young men in the 
work of the ministry. Bishop Lawrence, when 
a professor in the Episcopal Theological School 
at Cambridge, Massachusetts, spent much time 
in the rooms of Harvard students with this end 
in view. Theological professors should throw 
themselves as much as possible into the general 
life of the universities near their seminaries, 
taking an interest in the Student Young Men's 
Christian Association, in university athletics, and 
in other phases of student life. It would be well 
if there were at least one professor on the faculty 
of each seminary who would be in demand as 
a college preacher. The valuable work accom- 
plished in American colleges by Professor Hugh 
Black, of Union Theological Seminary, is a 
good illustration of this plan. Experience 
shows that the indirect approach of coming to 
the college as a preacher on other subjects is 
one of the most effective, especially when the 
professor makes opportunities for young men 



158 FUTURE LEADERSHIP OF THE CHURCH 

to interview him personally on the question of 
their life-work. These pastors of pastors, the 
theological professors, should appeal to the min- 
isters to do more to help meet the need for men. 
Let them write and speak to their old students; 
and let them exhort their present students to 
exercise earnestly the recruiting function of the 
ministry. 

The Christian Student Movement is becom- 
ing an increasingly efficient direct cause in in- 
fluencing young men for the ministry. So far 
as the young men of North American univer- 
sities and colleges are concerned, what is popu- 
larly known as the Christian Student Movement 
is the Student Young Men's Christian Associa- 
tion of the United States and Canada. It now 
has branches or Associations in over 700 uni- 
versities, colleges, and other institutions of 
higher learning and has a membership of over 
57,000 students, professors, and teachers.^ It 
is found in nearly all of the colleges of every 
Christian denomination. It is also established 
in all of the principal state and other undenomi- 
national institutions. It has extended to a large 
majority of the theological seminaries and theo- 

» "The Federation in 1907," p. 9. 



THE PROPAGANDA 159 

logical colleges of North America. There are 
only a few isolated societies of Christian stu- 
dents not yet affiliated. The objects of this 
movement are: to lead students to become dis- 
ciples of Jesus Christ as their Lord and Saviour ; 
to lead them to become members of the Church; 
to build them up in Christian faith and charac- 
ter; and to help them to place their lives where 
they will count for most in promoting the King- 
dom of Christ. The last named object has for 
many years been interpreted to include helping 
students to determine the question of their life- 
work. 

Such a movement has a great opportunity to 
help solve the problem of obtaining more young 
men of talent and consecration for the Christian 
ministry. It touches, as has been shown, nearly 
all of the centers of learning on the entire 
continent. Its membership includes a major- 
ity of the Christian students of the United 
States and Canada. It has, generally speaking, 
the confidence of the professors of the colleges 
and the leaders of the Church, as a result of its 
useful work of over twenty-five years in advanc- 
ing the moral and religious interests of the col- 
leges. It has developed agencies and methods 



i6o FUTURE LEADERSHIP OF THE CHURCH 

which enable it to bring ideas and personalities 
to bear with effect on all parts of the student field. 
It possesses certain advantages which are inher- 
ent in Associations of this kind. For example, 
its activities are purely voluntary, being the ex- 
pression of the initiative and independent action 
of the students. These Associations have many 
other interests besides that of helping to secure 
ministerial recruits, and this enables them to 
draw within their membership large numbers of 
Christian students not at first interested in the 
ministry, but who, once within the Associations, 
can be exposed to the appeal for that form of 
life service. These Associations also seek to 
place a burden of responsibility on Christian 
ministerial candidates to help influence their fel- 
low students to consider the claims of the min- 
istry. 

While students cannot do so much as minis- 
ters and professors, their added help cannot but 
be advantageous. Such Associations, being part 
of the great movement, possess an esprit de 
corps which is invaluable in any propaganda. 
The existence of such a movement enables the 
strong Associations to bring their ideas, experi- 
ence, and inspiration to bear helpfully upon 



THE PROPAGANDA l6l 

Associations which are weak or lacking in in- 
terest and results. Being interdenominational, 
the movement is able to do for the Church in 
state and other undenominational institutions 
what the Church cannot so well do for itself. 

What are some of the things being accom- 
plished by these Associations in the colleges? 
The claims of the ministry were presented dur- 
ing the past year under the auspices of these 
Associations in over two hundred colleges. The 
Student Movement is thus discovering the min- 
isters and professors best qualified to make an 
effective presentation of the claims of the min- 
istry, and their names are given to Associations 
inquiring for such help. College preachers, 
while at the college for their regular engage- 
ments, are asked by the Associations to cooper- 
ate. Selected groups of students are brought 
together so that prominent visiting ministers 
can speak to them more informally and answer 
questions on the subject of the ministry. These 
visitors are often asked to give time for inter- 
views with individual students who may wish 
to take counsel with them. In some large uni- 
versities, both denominational and undenomina- 
tional, ministerial institutes are held by the 



1 62 FUTURE LEADERSHIP OF THE CHURCH 

Associations. These institutes usually last at 
least two days. Leading ministers of different 
communions present various aspects of the 
work of the ministry and also speak on other 
subjects germane to the purpose of securing 
ministerial candidates. 

Regular home and foreign missionary meet- 
ings are held in most of the Associations. 
These serve to acquaint students with the needs 
and opportunities of the Church at home and 
abroad and thus help directly to interest men 
in the work of the ministry. The best available 
literature on the subject of the Christian min- 
istry is circulated. In certain institutions min- 
isterial bands have been organized; for instance, 
the Jonathan Edwards Club of Yale and the pre- 
ministerial club at the University of Chicago, 
and the various bands of ministerial recruits on 
the Pacific Coast. These are composed of stu- 
dents who have decided to enter the ministry and 
those who are seriously considering the matter. 
They serve to strengthen the purpose of those 
already decided, stimulate conclusive thinking 
on the part of others, and lead ministerial can- 
didates to do recruiting work among their fel- 
low students. The service rendered by these 



THE PROPAGANDA 163 

bands as well as by the Association itself, in con- 
serving the purpose of students who enter col- 
lege planning to be ministers but who in many 
cases without such helpful influences would 
abandon their life plan, is of the greatest value. 
The bands are, as a rule, organically related 
to the Christian Associations. Their success de- 
pends largely on the strength of their per- 
sonnel, the ability of their leaders, and the close- 
ness of their touch with the varied activities of 
the Association. 

The indirect influence of the Bible study de- 
partment of the Christian Associations which 
has enrolled over 40,000 undergraduate stu- 
dents in the devotional study of the Scrip- 
tures, is very marked in leading men to consider 
Christian work as a life-work. The philan- 
thropic and social betterment work carried on 
by the Associations results in interesting large 
numbers of young men in Christian work at 
home and abroad. College revivals and spir- 
itual awakenings accompanying the activities 
of these Associations are also helpful in the 
same direction. And besides all this it would 
be difficult to overstate the mighty reflex effect 
of the Student Volunteer Movement for Foreign 



1 64 FUTURE LEADERSHIP OF THE CHURCH 

Missions in influencing young men who cannot 
go abroad, to enter the ministry at home. 

The branches of the Student Movement which 
are established in the theological seminaries are 
naturally exerting a helpful influence. These As- 
sociations send out to visit the colleges, from time 
to time, deputations of theological students who 
are qualified to go with special power and help- 
fulness to college students. Often they are made 
up of men who, while undergraduates in the col- 
leges visited, were influential because of their 
athletic or other prominence. These deputations 
hold meetings, but give even more attention to 
personal interviews with students to whom they 
may have special access. Seminary students are 
also asked to correspond with capable students 
in the colleges and with other young men of abil- 
ity over whom they have some special influence. 
One of the leading theological seminaries in the 
South reports that the majority of their students 
were influenced to enter the ministry by fellow 
students in college, or by graduates of the sem- 
inary. At the conferences of students from As- 
sociations in theological seminaries, the problem 
of securing men for the ministry is always dis- 
cussed and the delegates are urged to cooperate. 



THE PROPAGANDA 165 

The Student Movement holds conferences 
which have a very helpful bearing on accomplish- 
ing the end here in view. At the annual confer- 
ence of the national and state traveling secre- 
taries of the Movement, the matter of enlisting 
college men for the ministry is always considered. 
It means much to have the sympathetic and ac- 
tive cooperation of these workers in the colleges 
who now number over forty. A helpful confer- 
ence has been held annually for several years 
under the joint auspices of the Associations at 
Yale, Hartford, and Union theological semi- 
naries, in the interest of winning strong college 
men for the ministry. These conferences bring 
together a limited number of the leading Chris- 
tian college men to devote two or three days to 
the consideration of different aspects of the work 
of the ministry. At these gatherings some of 
the best addresses on the ministry given in re- 
cent years have been presented. 

Most important of all student gatherings are 
the summer and winter training conferences of 
the Movement There are now eight of these 
gatherings each^year, attended by over two thou- 
sand of the foremost Christian men of the col- 
leges of North America. This number includes, 



l66 FUTURE LEADERSHIP OF THE CHURCH 

as a rule, nearly all of the men chosen by their 
fellow students to lead the voluntary Christian 
activities of the colleges during the following 
year. At each of these conferences the ministry 
is ably presented by at least one prominent min- 
ister. At the larger conferences, in addition to 
this public presentation before all the delegates, 
there is held a ministerial institute, meeting from 
day to day and attended by men who think of 
entering the ministry, where under wise leader- 
ship the call, qualifications, preparation, work, 
and perils of the ministry are considered. Much 
personal work is carried on from day to day. 

Some of the best men from the seminaries 
or from the ranks of those who have recently 
entered the ministry go to these conferences, 
unselfishly to devote themselves to this vitally 
important work. Among the speakers on the 
platforms are some of the leading Christian min- 
isters of the day. The influence of these men 
as object lessons of the best type of the Chris- 
tian minister is great indeed. The Christian fel- 
lowship, the prominence given to the ideas and 
plans of the Kingdom, and the time for unhur- 
ried meditation and prayer make the conditions 
favorable for discovering and obeying God's will. 



THE PROPAGANDA 167 

It may be stated confidently that more young 
men of college age have been led to enter the 
ministry as a result of visions seen and obeyed 
on Round Top at Northfield, on the shores of 
Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, and on the hills about 
Asheville, North Carolina, than in any other 
three places in North America. 

The Student Movement has not been without 
its influence on the Church as a whole in the ef- 
fort to secure ministerial recruits. Under its 
auspices have been held important conferences 
of leaders of the various Christian communions 
of the United States and Canada to discuss the 
reasons why more of the strongest men do not 
enter the ministry, and the means to be employed 
in influencing more such men to do so. These 
discussions have given wise direction to the re- 
cent plans and activities of the Associations. 
Correspondence has been conducted with many 
editors of the religious press which has resulted 
in a more helpful treatment of the problem in 
a number of the official periodicals of the 
churches. In connection with the call for the 
observance of the Universal Day of Prayer for 
Students, the Christian ministers of North Amer- 
ica have been appealed to from year ta year to 



l68 FUTURE LEADERSHIP OF THE CHURCH 

enlist prayer for laborers and to preach sermons 
designed to lead young men to consider the 
claims of this form of service, and to influence 
parents to consecrate their children to the work 
of the Lord. 

Not all of the Student Associations in the col- 
leges are doing the things which have been men- 
tioned. As yet only a minority of them can be 
said to be employing these various means for 
awakening and developing interest in the Chris- 
tian ministry, but happily their number is ever 
increasing. Moreover, no Student Association 
has done all the things indicated through a long 
period of years. While some of the methods 
have been in operation for nearly a generation 
in a few of the colleges, it has only been within 
the past decade that the larger part of this pro- 
gramme has been put into operation in any insti- 
tution. The sections of the country in which the 
most practical interest has been developed are the 
South and the Pacific Coast. The Student Move- 
ment has been proceeding with conservatism, 
doubtless with too much conservatism. It has 
not done all it should have done to meet the 
great need of the Church for leaders on the 
home field. It has, through the Student Volun- 



THE PROPAGANDA 169 

teer Movement, rendered an enormous service to 
the Church on the foreign mission field. This 
ought it to have done and not to have left the 
other undone. Lest, however, a misleading im- 
pression be made with reference to the part of 
the Student Movement in securing men for the 
ministry, it should be borne in mind that while, 
with the exception of Christian professors, it 
can do more than any other agency in influ- 
encing men during the years of college life, 
the decision of the question of one's Hfe-work 
will continue to be practically determined in most 
cases before entering college and, therefore, be- 
fore this Movement can bring its influence to 
bear. The influence of the Student Movement, 
therefore, can never be so great as that of the 
home and that of Christian ministers; neverthe- 
less, it can and should render increasing service 
in upholding the hands of these and all other 
agencies. 

The wise use of literature bearing on the min- 
istry and the work of the Church, is an effective 
agency to influence men to enter the ministry. 
In recommending certain books and other publi- 
cations the following objects have been kept in 
mind : to impress the best men with the dignity, 



I70 FUTURE LEADERSHIP OF THE CHURCH 

vital importance, and enduring character of the 
work of the Christian minister; to lead them to 
see the need in our day that young men of large 
caliber devote themselves to the ministry; and 
to reveal and communicate the spirit of the 
Christian ministry, thus serving to attract men 
to this calling. 

Some of the books best adapted to give earnest 
men a true and high conception of the Christian 
ministry are : " Lectures on Preaching," by Phil- 
lips Brooks ; " Lectures on Preaching," by Bishop 
Simpson ; and " The Christian Ministry," by Ly- 
man Abbott. 

Among the many books which help to give an 
adequate idea of the wonderful opportunities of 
the Christian ministry, and especially the need for 
more of the strongest men in this calling, might 
be named : " Christianity and the Social Crisis," 
by Rauschenbusch ; " The Social Message of the 
Modern Pulpit," by Brown ; " The Church and 
the Changing Order," by Mathews ; " Recon- 
struction in Theology," by King ; " The Gospel 
for an Age of Doubt," by Van Dyke; "The 
Challenge of the City," by Strong; "The Ad- 
ministration of an Institutional Church," by 
Hodges and Reichert ; " Chapters in Rural Prog- 



THE PROPAGANDA 171 

ress," by Butterfield; "The Country Town," 
by Anderson; and "Aliens or Americans?" by 
Grose. 

Experience shows that the books which are 
best calculated to reveal and communicate the 
spirit of the ministry are biographies of great 
ministers. Among many which might be men- 
tioned, attention is called to the following biog- 
raphies which possess merit not only because of 
their subjects, but also on account of the man- 
ner in which they are written : " Phillips Brooks," 
by Allen ; " Charles Kingsley — His Letters and 
Memories of His Life," edited by Mrs. Kingsley ; 
" Bishop Selwyn," by Curteis ; " Life and Let- 
ters of Brooke Foss Westcott," by Arthur West- 
cott ; " Memoirs of the Life and Writings of 
Thomas Chalmers," by Hanna ; " Memoir of 
Norman Macleod," by Donald Macleod ; " Will- 
iam Ross, of Cowcaddens," by J. M. E. Ross ; 
" The Life of James Hood Wilson," by Wells ; 
" The Life of George Matheson," by Macmil- 
lan ; " Newman Hall, an Autobiography " ; *' The 
Life of R. W. Dale," by his son; " Henry Ward 
Beecher," by Abbott ; " Life and Letters of Hor- 
ace Bushnell," by Mrs. Cheney ; " Memoirs of 
Rev. Charles G. Finney," written by himself; 



172 FUTURE LEADERSHIP OF THE CHURCH 

" The Life of John Wesley/' by Winchester ; and 
" The Life of Bishop Matthew Simpson," by 
Crooks. 

While very many pamphlets have been writ- 
ten on the claims of the Christian ministry and 
different aspects of the work of the minister, 
unfortunately little of this material can be rec- 
ommended for wide use. It is to be regretted 
that we have for the present time no such mas- 
terly presentation of the claims of the ministry 
to place in the hands of gifted young men as the 
booklet by President Francis Wayland, of Brown 
University, on " The Apostolic Ministry," which 
rendered such a great service to young men two 
generations ago.^ One of the most useful small 
books for young men who are seriously consid- 
ering the possibility of devoting themselves to the 
ministry, as well as for those who have already 
decided the question, is " Preparation for the 
Christian Ministry," by various authors, a small 
volume issued by the Student Christian Move- 
ment of Great Britain and Ireland. Extended 
investigations show that literature such as is 
here recommended, if wisely used, often results 

» The author is attempting to meet this need by editing a 
series of pamphlets by leaders in the Church. 



THE PROPAGANDA 173 

in turning the steps of young men into the min- 
isterial calHng. 

A statesmanlike policy with reference to se- 
curing for the ministry more men of exceptional 
gifts should be devised and carried out by 
the various Christian communions through their 
ecclesiastical councils, societies, and other agen- 
cies. There is great need of authoritative action 
on the subject by the different Christian bodies. 
A recent writer makes an unsatisfactory state- 
ment of the situation when he speaks of " the 
helpless and pitiful quest for men for the minis- 
try, and the general attitude of hopelessness with 
which the whole question is being handled by 
those whose business it would seem to be to solve 
the question." Where an actual quest has been 
made for men it has been far from being " help- 
less and pitiful." Moreover, one does not dis- 
cover an attitude of " hopelessness " characteriz- 
ing those whose business it should be to solve 
the question, for the sufficient reason that in most 
churches the whole question is not being handled. 

The impression made on my mind, as I have 
investigated what is being done in the different 
Christian communions, involving a careful exam- 
ination of the official proceedings of the ecclesi- 



174 FUTURE LEADERSHIP OF THE CHURCH 

astical bodies of North America for a genera- 
tion, and in some cases a longer period, is that 
too often the whole matter has been neglected 
or the efforts have been conflicting and unre- 
lated. Many detached efforts are being put 
forth by some societies, by certain theological 
seminaries, by a few editors, and by other indi- 
viduals here and there. There is very great 
need of concerted action. There is wanted in 
most Christian denominations a single, well 
thought out, comprehensive policy or plan cov- 
ering the whole ground from the human side 
and into which all subsidiary efforts may be 
fitted.^ We cannot achieve satisfactory results 
while we leave the problem to be grappled with 
by the theological seminaries alone, by the min- 
isters working by themselves apart from the 
laymen, by the editors working alone, by the 
Student Christian Movement by itself, or by in- 
fluential individuals each working apart from 
others. All the forces of a given Christian com- 
munion need to be united on a policy, if certain 
of the difficulties or misconceptions are to be 

» A good example of a comprehensive policy for a church is 
that for the Roman Catholic Church as outlined by J. Del- 
brel, S.J., in his recent book, "Pour repeupler Nos SemU 
naires" 



THE PROPAGANDA I7S 

overcome or neutralized, and if the whole situa- 
tion is to be adequately treated. Does anyone 
think that if the best men of a given denomi- 
nation were to unite on the solution of this prob- 
lem, their concerted study, efforts, and prayers 
would be unsuccessful? If so, he is ignorant of 
church history. 

Any statesmanlike plan should originate, as a 
rule, in the official ecclesiastical assembly of a 
particular Christian communion. This will put 
behind the policy the united force of the church. 
What problem should receive more continuous or 
more able attention at the hands of our assem- 
blies, conferences, and councils? Some ecclesi- 
astical bodies have power to make such a plan 
and to execute it. Even those that have not such 
authority can at least institute a thorough inves- 
tigation of conditions and make recommenda- 
tions to those concerned. Professor Willis G. 
Craig, of McCormick Theological Seminary, at 
a conference in Chicago, called attention to the 
fact that during the past forty years he had 
known two periods of marked decline in the min- 
isterial supply of the Presbyterian Church ; that 
each time the General Assembly grappled with 
the matter thoroughly and appealed to the entire 



176 FUTURE LEADERSHIP OF THE CHURCH 

minstry to cooperate in meeting the need; and 
as a result the difficulty in each case yielded to 
treatment. 

What are some of the agencies to be em- 
ployed by different Christian communions to 
help carry out any policy which may be 
adopted? There should be special commissions 
appointed to investigate with scientific thor- 
oughness conditions and experiences within the 
denomination and to report their findings and 
recommendations.^ In studying the official rec- 
ords of the various denominations, one is im- 
pressed with the fact that in most cases there 
is a woeful lack of knowledge of the actual situ- 
ation and of what has been attempted and done. 
In a matter of such importance, commissions 
should not be content with sending out a ques- 
tionnaire. They should take time and trouble to 
visit important men and institutions and to hold 
thorough interviews and conferences. The in- 
vestigations should cover such ground as : the 
need for men — present and prospective; the ap- 
parent sources of supply — ^number and quality; 

» The scope and instructions of such a commission are well 
illustrated in "The National Council of the Congregational 
Churches of the United States" (1907), p. 351. 



THE PROPAGANDA 177 

the various obstacles in the way of securing 
strong men for the ministry and an estimate of 
their relative importance; the means employed 
to discover and enlist young men, and their ef- 
ficiency; the experience of other Christian 
bodies, especially of those similarly situated; 
and the definite ways in which the Church 
should seek to meet the situation. 

Reports should be obtained annually from 
each parish showing the number of young men 
coming forward for the Christian ministry and 
for other forms of Christian service. It is 
deemed desirable to gather reports from all the 
churches each year covering their financial 
contributions. Surely this matter warrants like 
regular and thorough reports. They would 
serve as a constant reminder and stimulus as 
well as afford a basis for useful information. 

Appeals might be issued from time to time 
by boards of bishops, moderators of assem- 
blies and councils, and other prominent church 
leaders. Let these appeals be addressed to dif- 
ferent classes as occasion requires; for example, 
to the ministers of the denomination, to Chris- 
tian teachers and professors, or to Christian 
students. Only recently one of the denomina- 



178 FUTURE LEADERSHIP OF THE CHURCH 

tions in Canada sent an impressive and con- 
vincing appeal to all the Christian students of 
that denomination, calling for workers to meet 
the needs and opportunity in the Canadian 
West. This helped to discover a number of 
very useful workers. These appeals should be 
timely and convincing. They should not be 
buried away in the midst of long pastoral letters. 

In any campaign like this, if it is to succeed, 
the cooperation of the religious press is indis- 
pensable. The scanning of the files of the 
principal religious periodicals of the United 
States, Canada, and Great Britain shows that 
among those which have been rendering the 
most sustained and effective help, both in the 
thoroughness of attention given to the matter 
editorially and also in the quality of the articles 
secured from others, are The Standard of Chi- 
cago, The Congregationalist of Boston, The 
Churchman of New York, The Presbyterian of 
Toronto, and The Guardian of London. 

Educational societies and corresponding or- 
ganizations in connection with different Chris- 
tian churches, from the nature of the case, are 
in a position to accomplish a large service in 
enlisting ministerial candidates. Some of them 



THE PROPAGANDA 179 

have done so and are still doing so. Others 
do not seem to be as efficient as they were in 
the early years of their history. Such societies 
should be very ably led and liberally supported. 
They should not be regarded as a place for 
shelving certain ministers, nor as a stepping- 
stone to other positions. In some denomina- 
tions the extent and character of the field may 
warrant the employment by this society of a 
secretary or special representative to interest 
young men in the work of the ministry. He 
will, of course, avail himself of the cooperation 
of the Christian Student Movement because of 
the advantages which that agency possesses for 
rendering service to the Church. 

At times it may be wise for the denomination 
to send a well-qualified deputation to visit the 
colleges, especially those connected with that 
denomination, to awaken interest in the min- 
istry among students, professors, and pastors 
of neighboring churches. The Congregational 
denomination has carried out this plan at differ- 
ent times. For reasons which will suggest them- 
selves, the approach of denominational deputa- 
tions and representatives to state institutions 
had best be through the Christian Association 



i8o FUTURE LEADERSHIP OF THE CHURCH 

and through the pastors of the denomination in 
the college community. 

Special legislation by the various ecclesiasti- 
cal bodies will be required to meet certain diffi- 
culties which stand in the way of securing an 
adequate supply of suitable ministerial candi- 
dates. Some denominations have developed 
great aptitude in diagnosis, but do not seem to 
have made progress in therapeutics. Some 
have shown skill in the framing and passing of 
resolutions, but have done nothing in a prac- 
tical way to change the situation. The situation 
is deplored from time to time but philosophi- 
cally accepted and is not grappled with in any 
thoroughgoing manner. The following are 
some of the questions which might well receive 
the attention of ecclesiastical bodies because of 
their bearing on the problem of securing able 
ministerial recruits : the scientific study of the 
large question of demand and supply of minis- 
terial candidates; the wisest methods of helping 
ministerial candidates to solve the financial prob- 
lem involved in their education ; the consideration 
of the education and training required to equip 
young men for the ministry to-day; the desir- 
ability of a closer affiliation betwe&n theological 



THE PROPAGANDA l8l 

seminaries and universities; methods of pre- 
venting weak and otherwise undesirable young 
men from entering the ministry; provision for 
locating ministers of commanding ability in the 
neighborhood of state and other large unde- 
nominational universities; the promotion among 
young people in our churches of satisfactory in- 
struction and study on the needs and work of 
the Church; and the problem of insuring suit- 
able financial provision for men in the ministry 
and for those who because of old age or physi- 
cal disability are obliged to retire from active 
service. 

A thoroughly statesmanlike policy at the 
present time calls for interdenominational ac- 
tion, especially with reference to promoting the 
movement of Christian cooperation, federation, 
and union. There is need in many country dis- 
tricts of constraining small and feeble churches, 
representing dififerent denominations, to unite 
or consolidate into one church in cases where 
the constituency and resources are not sufficient 
to maintain properly more than one church. 
When one investigates the conditions in many 
communities of one thousand people having in 
them from three to seven churches, with re- 



l82 FUTURE LEADERSHIP OF THE CHURCH 

sultant rivalry, jealousy, insufficient financial 
support, lack of able leadership, and small re- 
sults, one cannot wonder that strong young 
men do not look with favor on entering the min^- 
istry involving as it does living in the midst of 
such conditions. As Dean Bosworth of Oberlin 
says: "A strong man looks for a field and not 
a hole," or, as Maltbie Babcock expressed 
it : " They want an arena, not a nest." They 
do not regard it as worth while to spend their 
lives on a handful of village sectarians so long 
as such waste is unnecessary. If it were nec- 
essary, experience shows that young men are 
willing to go to the bleak coasts of Labrador 
to minister to a few families who otherwise 
would be without any ministration. "Men do 
not feel called upon," as Dean George Hodges 
says, " to endure hardship for the sake of a 
theory of church government." ^ On the other 
hand, a village with the surrounding country 
would constitute an adequate and attractive field 
for any able man if there were but one church 
in the territory. His position would then be 
like that of the parish minister of a former time. 

' Letter in Archives of the World's Student Christian 
Federation. 



THE PROPAGANDA 183 

Union of churches should be promoted so far 
as it can be done without violating enlightened 
conscience or weakening personal loyalty to 
Christ the Lord. In so far as division is due 
to prejudice, ignorance, or unthinking conserva- 
tism, it should go, but the supremacy of con- 
science and the sense of personal responsibility 
to Christ to maintain and to spread His truth 
are even more precious than union. There is, 
however, every reason why Christians united on 
central verities should cooperate in building up 
the Kingdom of Christ. 

There are such marked advantages from 
uniting or consolidating churches in rural com- 
munities and in certain suburban communities 
unable satisfactorily to support more than one 
church, that the highest Christian statesman- 
ship calls for the carrying out of such a policy. 
Such union would make possible parishes the 
size and resources of which would call forth the 
full energies of both ministers and members. It 
would be in the interests of wise economy, both 
in buildings and in running expenses, and at 
the same time would make possible more at- 
tractive places of worship and better adapted 
equipment and facilities. It would also insure 



l84 FUTURE LEADERSHIP OF THE CHURCH 

economy of effort, preventing the waste which 
results from overlapping and friction and from 
affording insufficient scope for all workers. It 
would necessitate and make possible a more 
able and efficient leadership in preaching, in 
teaching, and in training — thus resulting in the 
stronger handling of the possibilities of the 
church in the community and neighboring ter- 
ritory. It would present a united front to the 
forces which oppose. It would illustrate the 
working and the mastery of Christian motives, 
graces, and forces. Some argue that the 
churches need the stimulus which comes from 
competition among themselves, but surely there 
is a higher and more potent stimulus — that of 
vital union in Christ to meet the deepest needs 
of the people of an entire community. More- 
over, this argument for competition is contrary 
to the finest examples of Christian experience. 
It is certainly dishonoring to supernatural re- 
ligion. The overmultiplication of churches and 
the resultant division and weakness have really 
been a deterrent to the progress of Christian 
faith in many a community.* 

» John Watson, "The Cure of Souls" (Lyman Beecher 
Lectures on Preaching at Yale University, 1896), p. 208 ff. 



THE PROPAGANDA 185 

Actual experience in connection with various 
federal and union efforts in communities in 
Maine and Massachusetts, as well as in other 
sections, proves convincingly the practicability 
and the advantages of this policy.^ No one who 
examines with care the results of these experi- 
ments during the past fifteen years can escape 
this conclusion. The question is no longer aca- 
demic. It needs no prophet to foretell that this 
movement in the direction of federating, unit- 
ing, and consolidating Christian forces is bound 
to increase in volume and momentum. Men 
may question, criticise, and resist it, but it can 
no more be held back than the tides of the sea. 
There are tendencies at work which make these 
developments inevitable. Christian laymen, in 
the light of their own business experience, will 
not much longer be patient with existing con- 
ditions. The most discerning Christian minis- 
ters are themselves earnest in their advocacy 
of a change. Surely a closer and more practi- 
cal drawing together of the different bands and 

» Raymond Calkins, " The Imperative Forward Summons," 
The Home Missionary, Vol. LXXXI, p. 290; "Forward Steps 
in Church Federation," The Congregationalist, Vol. XCIII, 
p. 176; "The Interdenominational Commission of Maine" 
(published by the Commission in Lewiston, Maine, 1906). 



l86 FUTURE LEADERSHIP OF THE CHURCH 

companies of His followers cannot but be pleas- 
ing to our Lord and Master. 

The foreign missionary achievements of the 
Church in Asia, Africa, and Latin America in 
respect to division of the field. Christian comity, 
cooperative effort, and union schemes in educa- 
tion, philanthropy, and evangelization have been 
such as to afford convincing and inspiring evi- 
dence in favor of the wide application of the 
same principles and methods on the home field. 
How much better and wiser it will be, instead 
of resisting this triumphant and inevitable move- 
ment, or by indifference and inaction prolonging 
the period of waste, inefficiency, and failure, to 
exercise true statesmanship in aggressive, mas- 
terly efforts to bring about this desirable coop- 
eration, federation, and consolidation. When it is 
known that our different Christian communions 
are moving in this direction the fact will greatly 
facilitate the work of attracting men of the high- 
est qualifications to the Christian ministry. 

In all the direct efforts put forth to secure 
men for the Christian ministry, whether by 
ministers themselves, by teachers and profess- 
ors, by the Christian Student Movement, by 
the preparation and use of literature, or by rep- 



THE PROPAGANDA 187 

resentatives of our different Christian com- 
munions acting in a corporate capacity, there 
are a few considerations which should be clearly 
borne in mind and emphasized. 

Seek to get young men to recognize the need 
for more men of capacity in the ministry, and 
the unique and unsurpassed opportunities for 
service which this calling affords. Granted a 
sense of the profound need and of the possi- 
bilities for usefulness in the ministry, and the 
attitude of the young men of our time toward 
this Christlike work will be revolutionized. 

Make plain to young men what constitutes a 
call to the ministry and how to interpret it. 
There is possibly no other subject of great im- 
portance on which there is more confusion of 
thought. Get a sufficient number of young men 
of capacity to see and think clearly on this 
vital point and to be obedient to the truth 
involved in it, and there will be no lack of 
qualified men offering themselves for the Chris- 
tian ministry; for it is inconceivable that God 
Himself has neglected to do His part in actually 
calling enough men to accomplish His will — 
and surely it is His will that the Church of 
Christ shall be ably led. 



l88 FUTURE LEADERSHIP OF THE CHURCH 

Do not overlook or minimize God's part in 
the calling of men. There could be no more 
disastrous mistake than to think and to act as 
though it were possible for men alone to recruit 
the ranks of the ministry of Jesus Christ. One 
grave peril resulting from a comprehensive 
and aggressive policy of enlisting ministerial 
candidates, such as has been outlined, is that 
the impulse to enter the ministry may be made 
mechanical instead of deeply spiritual; that out- 
ward human suggestion may too largely replace 
inward prompting of the Spirit. Only God can 
efifectually call men into this service. It is the 
sovereign work of His Spirit to separate men 
unto the work whereunto He has called them. 
Though it is the obvious duty of men to do all 
and more than has been thus far suggested, the 
thought should be ever with those who have 
any part in this effort, that the real merit of 
what we do lies in the fact that we thus mul- 
tiply the number of channels through which 
the Lord of the harvest actually communicates 
His wishes, His impulses, His calls to the souls 
of men.^ 

» As the call to the ministry is treated in one of the series 
of pamphlets issued by the Christian Association Movement, 
further treatment of the subject is omitted here. 



THE PROPAGANDA 189 

Appeal to the heroic in young men. It is at 
this point that so many addresses and appeals 
on the ministry fail. The appeals which lay 
hold of strong men are not those which set 
forth the attractions, compensations, and advan- 
tages of the ministry. A psychological study of 
youth would suggest the futility of this basis of 
appeal as contrasted with that which addresses 
itself to the heroic. 

The call to heroism meets with a heroic re- 
sponse. Make the Gospel hard and you make it 
triumphant. If it is a choice between self- 
sacrifice and self-interest, the former will draw 
the stronger men. In other departments of life 
it is the appeal to the heroic which enlists strong 
natures. One recalls that when Stanley wanted 
a few young men to go with him on his last 
perilous African tour he appealed for volunteers, 
and within a few days he had hundreds of eager 
applicants.^ Lieutenant Shackleton told me that 
when the expedition of The Discovery was 
fitted out to attempt to reach the South Pole, 
an appeal was made for several men to join the 
company, and virtually the entire Channel Squad- 
ron volunteered. Trained nurses and physicians 
» H. M. Stanley, "In Darkest Africa," I, p. 40. 



19© FUTURE LEADERSHIP OF THE CHURCH 

are constantly exposing themselves to the dan- 
gers of serious contagion, and we look upon their 
heroic conduct as a matter of course. Think of 
the young men who left titles and estates, their 
homes and callings, their comfort and ease, and 
went to the shores of the Black Sea to face fam- 
ine, exposure, pestilence, and cannon before the 
walls of Sebastopol. We witness the same spec- 
tacle of heroism in every war. 

In the Church in other days heroic natures 
have offered themselves for the hard tasks of 
life. Has not the Christian Church furnished 
an unbroken line of martyrs and confessors? 
Has not every great battlefield of the Church 
been won at the cost of lives gladly given for 
Christ's sake? St. Paul did not shrink from his 
call, even though it was accompanied with the 
warning : " I will show him how many things 
he must suffer for my name's sake." ^ He had 
this in mind doubtless when he exhorted Tim- 
othy to endure hardness, that is, to take his share 
of the sufferings. 

We see the appeal to the heroic being hon- 
ored in the Church of to-day. Dean Warren, 
of the Boston University School of Theology, 
1 Acts ix, i6. 



THE PROPAGANDA 191 

was recently speaking of a sermon he heard 
preached in Milan by a Roman Catholic friar 
who, in appealing to the mothers in the audi- 
ence to give their sons to the Christian priest- 
hood, pictured with great vividness the hard- 
ships of the ministry rather than its delights. 
A member of the Reformed Church Mission 
Board not long since stated that they were able 
to get more recruits for Arabia, their most dif- 
ficult field, than for any other mission. Professor 
J. C. Roper, of the General Theological Semi- 
nary of New York, speaking at a gathering of 
Christian leaders, said that in England in his day 
the ablest men offered themselves for Central 
Africa, and that, so far as he knew, that difficult 
field was never undermanned. He added that 
fourteen of his own classmates were buried there. 
The Student Volunteer Movement for Foreign 
Missions, during its twenty years' history, has 
had the largest number of volunteers offer them- 
selves for the most difficult fields. In fact, the 
principal secret of the power and success of this 
Movement lies in the presentation of the hard- 
ships and trials, the conflicts and sacrifices in- 
volved in the world's evangelization. Men of 
heroic mold respond to this challenge. 



192 FUTURE LEADERSHIP OF THE CHURCH 

To appeal to the heroic was Christ's way. He 
never hid His scars to win a disciple. " Teacher, 
I will follow thee whithersoever thou goest " ^ 
..." Do you know where I am going ? I am 
going to die.'* He held out no assurance of an 
easy career or exemption from suffering, sacri- 
fice, and death. What more wonderful charge 
was ever given by a leader to his followers than 
that contained in the tenth chapter of St. Mat- 
thew ? 

"What he braved he knew — 
Ease, honor, glory, to the winds he threw: 
On the cold earth his Master had His bed, 
Then why should roses lull the servant's head? 
Shall he desire the favor of the world 
Whose bitterest malice on his Lord was hurled?" 

The call to the Christian ministry to-day is a 
call to the heroic, if it is anything. President 
Eliot, in addressing the entering class of the 
Harvard Divinity School a few years ago, char- 
acterized the ministry as " the most adventurous 
of the professions." It reminds one of the say- 
ing of St. Augustine : " There is no work in this 
life more difficult, toilsome, and hazardous," ^ 
than the life of a minister. It will require hero- 

* Matthew viii, 19. 

'Migne's "Patrologia Laiina," XXXIII, p. 87. 



THE PROPAGANDA 193 

ism to make Christ known and obeyed in the 
cities of our continent ; to redeem the towns, vil- 
lages, and rural districts ; to lay Christian foun- 
dations in the new states and provinces of our 
great West; to grapple successfully with the 
most serious social problems of our day ; and to 
wage a triumphant warfare throughout the non- 
Christian world. The call to the ministry is a 
call to Lucknow and Port Arthur service. It is 
well that this is so. The highest call that comes 
to young men, as Mazzini has said, is, " Come 
and suffer." There is a vicarious element in 
strong young men which needs to be called out 
and exercised. There is a deep truth in the words 
of Illingworth : " The pleasures of each genera- 
tion evaporate in air ; it is their pains that increase 
the spiritual momentum of the world." ^ 

1 Essay on "Pain" in "Lux Mundi'* (First Edition), 
p. 124. 



INDEX 



INDEX 

Abbott, Dr. Lyman 144 

Advantages of consolidating churches in rural com- 
munities 183 

Agassiz 141 

Age limit in ministry, fear of 94> 95 

Altruistic professions appeal to young men ... 67, 68 

Altruistic service leading men into the ministry . , 118 

Ames, Bishop 88 

Anderson, Bishop, quoted 148 

Anderson, Wilbert L. (note) : . 39 

Andover Band in Iowa 27 

Andrews, Bishop 95 

Appeals for recruits 177 

Archbishop of Canterbury — 

Appoints committee on supply of clergy . . . 136 

Quoted 80 

Archbishop Nicolai 95 

Asbury, Bishop 26 

Assemblies, ecclesiastical, should inaugurate policy for 

getting recruits 175 

Atmosphere of universities and colleges, influence on the 

ministry 109-117 

Babcock, Maltbie — 

Attracts men to ministry 105 

Quoted 182 

Balfour, quoted 133 

Beecher, Lyman 27 

Bible study, influence on recruiting for the ministry . 163 
197 



1 98 INDEX 

Biographies of ministers — 

List of 171 

Show influence of Christian home 127 

Black, Professor Hugh 157 

Books on the ministry, see Literature. 

Boston, percentage of Christian workers in four leading 

denominations in, coming from the country . ^'j 

Bosworth, Dean, quoted 182 

Brock, Dr 105 

Brooks, Phillips — 

Influence of 107 

On financial aid to candidates 83 

Quoted 17 

Brown, Dr. S. R 155 

Burton, Professor E. D., quoted ....... 5 

Bushnell, Horace 122 

Butterfield Kenyon L. {notes) 38, 40 

Cairns, D. S., quoted 19 

Calderwood, Professor Henry, quoted 142 

Calkins, Raymond, quoted 185 

Calvin 47 

Campbell, R. J., quoted 46 

Canadian Presbyterian Church 87 

Candidates for the ministry — 

Decline in number of, in Canada, 6; in Great 
Britain, 6; in other parts of the world, 9; on 

the Continent 8 

Emphasis on quality of 11 

Statistics regarding 5 

Canterbury, Archbishop of, see Archbishop of Canterbury. 

Carroll, H. K. {note) 67 

Causes deterring young men from the ministry — 

Attitude of Church toward 98,99 

Order of importance 98 

See Chapter III 57 

Chalmers 35 

Chaplain of Balliol College, Oxford 117 



INDEX 199 

Chicago Theological Seminary . 124 

Choice of studies — 

Influence of, on supply of ministers . . . . 70, 72 

In preparatory schools, affects choice of profession . 7 1 
Christian Student Movement, see Young Men's Christian 
Association. 

Chrysostom 47 

Church- 
Attitude of laboring men toward 44 

Importance of, to society 3 

Necessity of leaders for 4 

Relation to denominational colleges 113 

Relation to state and undenominational colleges . 114 
Church of the Sea and Land in New York .... 118 
Cities- 
Ministers needed for 32-36 

Rapid growth of ^;^ 

Strategic positions of 35 

Clark, President W. S 155 

Clifford, Dr. John 146 

Colleges — 

Christian colleges' influence on supply of ministers 1 1 i-i 13 

Examples 112 

Revivals and the ministry 122, 123 

State and undenominational 114-116 

Commissioner of Education, quoted 61 

Commissions should be appointed to investigate con- 
ditions 176 

Commons, John R., quoted 29 

Courage in the ministry 108 

Courses of study, modern, influence of 71 

Craig, Professor W. G., quoted 175 

Creighton, Bishop, quoted 151 

Curteis, G. H. (note) 144 

Cuyler, Dr. Theodore L 95 

Dale, Dr. R. W., quoted 63 

Davidson College, North Carolina, and the ministry . 112 



200 INDEX 

Davis, Rev. Ozora S., quoted 31 

Day of Prayer for students 136 

Decision for the ministry usually made early . . . 126 

Delbrel, J. (note), 151; quoted 174 

Denominational colleges 111-113 

Difficulties in securing ministerial candidates, ad- 
vantage of . . . . - , 100, lOI 

Disruption in Scotland 92 

Doubt deterring men from the ministry, see Problems, 
Religious. 

Drummond, Henry 121 

Duncan, "Rabbi" John 119 

Dutch Reformed Church in South Africa .... 87 

D wight. President Timothy 122 

Education, relation of minister to religious ... 22, 23 
Educational societies should be enUsted in a propaganda 178 

Edwards, Jonathan 41 

EUot, C. W.— 

Note 72 

Quoted 192 

Federation of churches — 

Examples of 185 

Ministers needed to develop 49 

Necessary under certain conditions .... 181-185 

Financial provision for ministers — 

Canadian Presbyterian Church 87 

Dutch Reformed Church in South Africa ... 87 
Ina,dequate provision hinders some young men . 86-91 
United Free Church of Scotland 87 

Finney, Charles G. 27, 122 

Influence on ministry 121 

Fiske, John, quoted 26 

Foreign missions — 

Reflex influence of, on home ministry .... 67 
Relation of minister to ....... 50-53 

Forsyth, P. T., quoted 21 



INDEX 20I 

Garibaldi . 31 

Glengarry Revival 122 

Glover, John, quoted 68 

Gordon, Dr. George A., quoted 13, 154 

Grant, Alexander 27 

Guthrie, Thomas 35> 87 

Hall, Gordon 122 

Hanover College and the ministry 112 

Harnack, Adolf (note) 35 

Harper, W. R. (note) 72 

Example of 154 

Haystack Prayer Meeting 122 

Henderson, Rev. J, Bell, quoted 152 

Heroism — 

Call to 189-193 

Required in ministry 12 

Hodges, Dean George, quoted 182 

Hoge, James 27 

Home — 

Christian, influence of, on the ministry . . . 126-133 

Examples of, effect of 128-130 

Ministers may influence 132 

Hope College, Michigan, and the ministry . . . . 112 
Hughes, Hugh Price 36 

lUingworth, J. R., quoted 21, 193 

Immigration — 

Changes in sources of 29 

Providing workers to help immigrants .... 32 

Relation of the minister to 27-32 

To United States and Canada increasing ... 28 

Intellectual freedom demanded by young men . . 76, 77 

Janes, Captain L. L 155 

Jefferson, Dr. Charles E 107 

Jonathan Edwards Club at Yale 162 



202 INDEX 

Kelly, Herbert, quoted 126 

Kelsey, Professor F. W. (note) 72 

Kingsley, Charles 41,47,106 

Knapp, S. A. (note) . 24 

Knox, John 47 

Heroic spirit of 12 

Kosciuszko 31 

Kumamoto Band 155 

Lambeth Conference, 1908 (note) 99 

Lawrence, Bishop 157 

Laymen, desire of young men to work as . . , 61-65 
Legislation necessary in order to secure candidates . . 180 
Liberty of expression, curtailment of, feared . . 76-79 

Lightfoot, J. B., quoted 4, 22 

Lincoln 31 

Literature on ministry — 

Giving conception of the ministry .... 170-172 

On the claims of the ministry scanty .... 97 

Use of, in propaganda for the ministry . . . 169-172 

London, Bishop of 36,117 

McDougall, George 27 

McQuaid, Bishop, quoted . . 127 

Mackenzie, Professor E. A., quoted 149 

Maclaren, Dr. Alexander 95 

Mahan, A. T. {noie) 60 

"Maine's Hall of Fame" 36 

Mansfield College, Oxford 109 

Massie, Professor Robert K., quoted ...... 148 

Materialistic spirit — 

Influence on young men 57~6i 

In religion 60 

Prosperity of the United States and Canada . . 57 

Maurice 47 

Mazzini — 

Quoted 193 

Referred to 31 



INDEX 203 

Meyer, Dr. F. B 105 

Middlebury College, Vermont, and the ministry . . 112 

Miners, earnings of certain classes of 88 

Ministers — 

Able to recruit the ministry 141-149 

Biographies of 171 

Misconceptions regarding work of ... . 81-86 
Needed to deal with immigration problem . . 27-32 
Needed to deal with social problems . . . 42-47 
Needed to develop character in the nation . . 48-49 
Needed to develop rural communities . . . 36-42 
Needed to develop a strong base for the missionary 

propaganda 50-53 

Needed to develop teaching and training work . 22-24 
Needed to direct movements toward federation 49, 50 
Needed to guide the life of the cities . . . 32-36 
Needed to guide religious thinking .... 18-22 
Needed to lay Christian foundations in West . 24-27 

Object lesson of 105 

Salaries of, inadequate 89-91 

Should magnify calling 106 

Should personally interest students .... 145-147 
Ministry — 

Decision for, usually early 126 

Regular functions of 17 

Missionaries, number of . . 52, 66 

Missionary illustrations of federation 186 

Missionary spirit in the home ministry . . . . . 53 

Moody, D, L., influence on the ministr)'^ 121 

Moore, W. W. (note) 96 

Moral requirements of ministry keep men from enter- 
ing 79-81 

Morley, Samuel, quoted 141, 142 

Murray, Dr. Andrew 129 

Nash, Professor Henry S 107 

Nation, relation of Church to 48 

National Council of the Congregational Churches (note) . 176 



204 INDEX 

New England, influence of Puritan ministers in . . 26 

New York, growth of 34 

Nicolai, Archbishop 95 

Opportunity in the non-Christian world . . . . 51,52 

Orr, Professor, quoted 131 

Oxford and Cambridge, graduates of, in New England . 26 

Parents, attitude of, toward ministry 96 

Illustrated 59 

Park College, Missouri, and the ministry . . . . 112 

Peabody, Francis G., quoted 20 

Peile, James H. F. {note) 42 

Peking University, ministerial band at 155 

Phelps, Professor Austin, quoted 107 

Philanthropic work indirectly influencing men for the 

ministry 117-119 

Policy, statesmanlike — 

Cooperation of press required . . . . . . 178 

Educational societies' part in, 178; example of . . 176 

Interdenominational action 181 

Needed 173 

Required 173-186 

Should originate in ecclesiastical assembly , . . 175 
Special legislation sometimes necessary . ... 180 

Porter, President, quoted 113 

Prayer — 

Day of 136 

Failure in 135 

Importance of, should be urged 136, 137 

Influence of, in recruiting for the ministry . . 133-138 
Preparatory schools, influence of, on supply of ministers. 71 

Press, cooperation of 178 

Princeton, revival at 123 

Problems, religious — 

Keeping men from the ministry 73-7^ 

Should impel men into the ministry , , . 75, 76 
Professions, increase in number of 62 



INDEX 205 

Professors — 

Influence of, in recruiting for the ministry . . 150-158 

Responsibilities of, in recruiting for the ministry . 156-158 

Propaganda for the ministry — 

By Student Young Men's Christian Association . 159-169 

Lack of 95-98 

Should be statesmanlike 173-186 

Rainsford, Dr. W. S., quoted 59, 148 

Rainy, Principal, quoted 125 

Ramsay, W. M. {note) 30> 35 

Rauschenbusch, Walter, .quoted 43 

Recruiting for the ministry — 

Appeal to heroic in men 189-193 

Minister's part in 141-149 

Supernatural element in ...... . .188 

Revivals — 

College, and the ministry 122,123 

Leading men into the ministry 1 19-126 

Philosophy of, influence of 124 

Richards, T. C, quoted 122 

Robertson, James 27 

Rochester, revival in 123 

Roper, Professor J. C, quoted 191 

Ross, WilUam 35 

Rural communities — 

Changes in character 39 

Importance of 36, 37 

Men required for 40-42 

Moral conditions in 38 

St. Augustine quoted 192 

Salaries of ministers, see Ministers. 

Sanders, President Frank K., quoted 25 

Sapporo Band 155 

Savonarola ^ . . . . 47 

Schauffler, Dr. Henry A., work in Cleveland ... 32 

Schoolmasters, influence of 151 



2o6 INDEX 

Scotland, homes of 130 

Secular pursuits attractive to young men . . . 61-65 

Selwyn, Bishop 144 

Sermons on the claims of the ministry needed . . 143-145 
Service — 

Opportunities other than the ministry attracting 

young men 66-70 

Unselfish, increasing 65 

Sewall, John L., quoted 31 

Shackle ton, Lieutenant, quoted 189 

Smith, Dr. J. Henry 128 

Smith, Professor George Adam, quoted . . . .121, 135 
Social problems — 

Ministers must deal with 42 

Relation of Church to 42-47 

Spring Street Presbyterian Church 118 

Spurgeon 109 

Stalker, James, quoted 12 

Stanley, H. M., quoted 189 

State and undenominational colleges, see Colleges. 
Statistics — 

Regarding denominational colleges .... 111-113 
Regarding increase of divinity and other students 

(1870-1906) 61 

Stearns, President 153 

Steiner, Edward A. {note) 31 

Student Movement, see Young Men^s Christian Asso- 
ciation. 
Student Volunteer Movement — 

As indirect influence 163 

As recruiting agency 66 

Number of volunteers 66 

Relation of, to ministry 66 

Undenominational colleges 115 

Supernatural element in calling men 188 

Tauler, John, referred to 108 

Taylor, Professor Graham . . . . . . . . 123, 124 



INDEX 207 

Teachers, see Professors. 
Theological seminaries — 

Need for adjusting courses of 72 

Requirements of entrance into, affect young men 70, 71 
Young Men's Christian Association in . . . . 164 
Theological students- 
Financial aid for 82-86 

Financial aid for, looked on with disfavor ... 82 
Theological unrest, relation of minister to . . . 18-20 

Tomlinson, E, T., quoted 83 

Toronto, growth of 33 

Tucker, W. J. {note) 64 

Tyler, Professor Moses Coit 153 

Tyler, W. S., quoted 122 

United Free Church of Scotland . » 87 

Van Dyke, Dr. Henry 144 

Van Dyke, Professor Henry, quoted 59 

Vaughan, R. A., quoted 108 

Victoria University, Toronto, and the ministry . . . 112 
Volunteers, Student, see Student Volunteer Movement. 

Warren, Dean, quoted 190 

Washington 31 

Watson, John {note) 184 

Wayland, President Francis 172 

Wells, George Frederick {note) 39, 40 

Wells, James {note) 142 

Wesley, John 47 

West, importance of, at the present time . . . 24, 25 

Westcott, Bishop 128 

West Point Military Academy cited as an example . 84 

Whipple, Bishop 27 

Whitfield's influence on the ministry 121 

Whitman, Marcus 27 

Whyte, Dr. Alexander 95, 109 

Wilberforce, William 128 

Wilkinson, David H. D. {note) 119 



2o8 INDEX 

Williams, revival at . . 122 

Wilson, Dr. James Hood 148 

Wilson, President Woodrow, quoted 12 

Woolsey, President, quoted 37 

Wrong attitude of society towards ministry diverts young 

men 80, 81 

Yale, revival at 122 

Yokohama Band 155 

Young Men's Christian Association — 

And undenominational colleges 115 

Conferences under auspices of 165-167 

Influence of, on the supply of ministers ... 69 

Influence on the Church 158-169 

Recruiting for the ministry 158, 159 

Secretaryship of 68, 69 

Statistics . 158 



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